Snakes are a remarkable evolutionary success story. Numerous snake-inspired robots have been proposed over the years. Soft robotic snakes (SRS), with their continuous and smooth bending capability, can better mimic their biological counterparts' unique characteristics. Prior SRSs are limited to planar operation with a limited number of planar gaits. We propose a novel SRS with spatial bending ability and investigate snake locomotion gaits beyond the planar gaits of the state-of-the-art systems. We derive a complete floating-base kinematic model of the SRS and use the model to derive joint-space trajectories for serpentine and inward/outward rolling locomotion gaits. These gaits are experimentally validated under varying frequency and amplitude of gait cycles. The results qualitatively and quantitatively validate the proposed SRSs' ability to leverage spatial bending to achieve locomotion gaits not possible with current SRS designs.
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Wheelless Soft Robotic Snake Locomotion: Study on Sidewinding and Helical Rolling Gaits
Soft robotic snakes (SRSs) have a unique combination of continuous and compliant properties that allow them to imitate the complex movements of biological snakes. Despite the previous attempts to develop SRSs, many have been limited to planar movements or use wheels to achieve locomotion, which restricts their ability to imitate the full range of biological snake movements. We propose a new design for the SRSs that is wheelless and powered by pneumatics, relying solely on spatial bending to achieve its movements. We derive a kinematic model of the proposed SRS and utilize it to achieve two snake locomotion trajectories, namely side winding and helical rolling. These movements are experimentally evaluated under different gait parameters on our SRS prototype. The results demonstrate that the SRS can successfully mimic the proposed spatial locomotion trajectories. This is a significant improvement over the previous designs, which were either limited to planar movements or relied on wheels for locomotion. The ability of the SRS to effectively mimic the complex movements of biological snakes opens up new possibilities for its use in various applications.
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- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10454192
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2023 IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft)
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 6
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract Snakes—a subset of lizards—have traditionally been divided into two major groups based on feeding mechanics: “macrostomy,” involving the ingestion of proportionally large prey items; and “microstomy,” the lack of this ability. “Microstomy”—considered present in scolecophidian and early‐diverging alethinophidian snakes—is generally viewed as a symplesiomorphy shared with non‐snake lizards. However, this perspective of “microstomy” as plesiomorphic and morphologically homogenous fails to recognize the complexity of this condition and its evolution across “microstomatan” squamates. To challenge this problematic paradigm, we formalize a new framework for conceptualizing and testing the homology of overall character complexes, or “morphotypes,” which underlies our re‐assessment of “microstomy.” Using micro‐computed tomography (micro‐CT) scans, we analyze the morphology of the jaws and suspensorium across purported “microstomatan” squamates (scolecophidians, early‐diverging alethinophidians, and non‐snake lizards) and demonstrate that key components of the jaw complex are not homologous at the level of primary character state identity across these taxa. Therefore, rather than treating “microstomy” as a uniform condition, we instead propose that non‐snake lizards, early‐diverging alethinophidians, anomalepidids, leptotyphlopids, and typhlopoids each exhibit a unique and nonhomologous jaw morphotype: “minimal‐kinesis microstomy,” “snout‐shifting,” “axle‐brace maxillary raking,” “mandibular raking,” and “single‐axle maxillary raking,” respectively. The lack of synapomorphy among scolecophidians is inconsistent with the notion of scolecophidians representing an ancestral snake condition, and instead reflects a hypothesis of the independent evolution of fossoriality, miniaturization, and “microstomy” in each scolecophidian lineage. We ultimately emphasize that a rigorous approach to comparative anatomy is necessary in constructing evolutionary hypotheses that accurately reflect biological reality.
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1109/RoboSoft55895.2023.10121918
