An Efficient Follow-the-Leader Strategy for Continuum Robot Navigation and Coiling

Abdelkhalick Mohammad; Matteo Russo; Yihua Fang; Xin Dong; Dragos Axinte; James Kell

RA-L 202152 citations

An Efficient Follow-the-Leader Strategy for Continuum Robot Navigation and Coiling

Abdelkhalick Mohammad, Matteo Russo, Yihua Fang, Xin Dong, Dragos Axinte, James Kell

Abstract

Efficient path planning for hyper-redundant continuum and snake-like robots is a challenging task due to limited sensing capabilities, high computational loads, multiple possible solutions, and non-linear models. This letter presents a new approach to snake robot navigation and coiling, with an algorithm that enables online step-by-step position adjustment with a follow-the-leader strategy, significantly improving the performance of the robot when compared to previous methods. The proposed algorithm is demonstrated on a 16-degree-of-freedom snake-like robot for inspection and maintenance tasks in nuclear facilities.

BibTeX

@inproceedings{ral2021_anefficientfollo,
  title = {An Efficient Follow-the-Leader Strategy for Continuum Robot Navigation and Coiling},
  author = {Abdelkhalick Mohammad and Matteo Russo and Yihua Fang and Xin Dong and Dragos Axinte and James Kell},
  booktitle = {RA-L 2021},
  year = {2021}
}