A waypoint guidance strategy for underwater snake robots

In this paper, a waypoint guidance strategy is proposed for an underwater snake robot. The robot is directed to follow a path which is derived using path planning techniques. A first version of the path is derived by the path planner by using the artificial potential field method for obstacle avoidance. Afterwards, by subsampling the derived path, a set of waypoints are chosen along the path. The path is then defined by interconnecting these waypoints by straight lines. Secondly, a straight line path following controller is proposed, to make the underwater snake robot follow the desired path. Simulation results are presented, illustrating the performance of the proposed guidance control strategy for both lateral undulation and eel-like motion.