Development of Active-Joint Active-Wheel High Traversability Snake-Like Robot ACM-R4.2

Snake-like hypermobile robots are thought to be effective in search and rescue task applications, and many research institutions have studied such robots. In prior research, we developed an active-joint active-wheel snake-like robot, ACM-R4.1, which had a watertight structure and joint torque sensors that also acted as a torque limiter. Although R4.1 was highly robust in severe environments and had high terrain adaptability, we found problems that had to be overcome, such as getting stuck in rough terrain. We therefore propose a more practical snake-like robot, ACMR4.2, in order to maximize mobility performance. The main features of R4.2 are as follows: (1) thin yaw axis joints, (2) light-weight plastic housing made by vacuum injection method, and (3) wheels those were wider than those of R4.1. We tested R4.2 performance and found that it showed higher traversability than R4.1.