螺旋捻転運動により直管をつなぐ曲管を走破するヘビ型ロボットの実現

抄録

Biological snakes have a soft elongated body and adapt to various environment in spite of simple form. By using them for engineering, snake robots can move in complex environment. In the case that a snake-like robot goes into pipes, it can use helical rolling motion. In previous study, a method to make a bending helical shape for a snake-like robot is proposed. However the method is not utilized in a bent pipe connected with straight pipes. In this paper, we realize going through the pipes by using helical rolling motion and bending helical rolling motion. In addition, by considering a direction of bending helical rolling motion, we propose a method to adjust a snake robot to a bent pipe. The proposed method is verified by experiments.