A Study on Sinus-Lifting Motion of a Snake Robot With Sequential Optimization of a Hybrid System

In this paper, we consider “sinus-lifting motion” of a living snake, in which a snake lifts up some parts of its body from the ground, and switches the lifted parts dynamically. It is not clear whether imitating the sinus-lifting motion is the best locomotion or not for a snake like robot. The aim of this paper is to propose an appropriate motion pattern to a snake like robot considering the optimality of the sinus-lifting motion. We introduce two physical parameters, constraint forces and energy efficiency, as cost functions to optimize and propose switching strategies for generating optimal motion patterns of a snake like robot.