Simulation of the motion of a five-link crawling robot with controlled friction on a surface having obstacles

Abstract

We consider the motion of a five-link crawling robot in an environment with obstacles located discretely. The robot is fitted with special controlled friction elements for the periodic fixation of links on the surface and has a possibility of the spatial configuration change due to a detachment of the end links from the surface. One of the possible crawling modes is analyzed as the end links are detached from the surface and the adjacent links rotate by a given angle in the plane of motion without interaction with obstacles. As the result of simulating by the numerical method, we establish the dependence between the average velocity of the plant (and its maneuverability between obstacles) and control values.