Snake robots
posted Jan 3rd 2006 11:00am by Eliot Phillipsfiled under: cnc hacks, robots hacks
Dr. Gavin Miller has been investigating snake robots for over ten years. His first models, S1 and S2, use one servo at each joint. S3 used a pair of servos to create a sidewinding motion along with the more common horizontal undulations. S4 was an attempt to power the snake with just one motor, but ran into problems because of high torque in the u-joints. S5 was the first to have all CNC parts, which made for a more compact package. The larger snake did require the use of a second microprocessor. S6 was another attempt at a single motor snake, this time using a complicated gear train. It still had problems. S7 is the most recent prototype and is an attempt at rectilinear motion like that of a python (undulations in the direction of movement).
[thanks joeboy]
snakebots are cool. i made one with a group at the end of the first year of my ee-study at the university here. it used one engine per joint, and all the segments were the same (one uC, one motor, connector in front, connector in back) and could be connected in any order. the nice thing of the design was: powersupply allowing, you could split the snake in two and both ends would become an independent snake. Too bad I don’t have any info of it online anymore.
Posted at 11:35 am on Jan 3rd, 2006 by Sprite_tm