Development of Practical 3-Dimensional Active Cord Mechanism ACM-R4

Despite the many studies on snake-like robots and long, thin super-redundant manipulators targeting their potential applications in complex environments, e.g., containing obstacles such as water and/or dust that impede robot movement, most have limited their investigation to robot maneuverability within the laboratory and few have attempted to develop robots in practical environments. We propose a practical, dust- and water-proof snake-like robot and its prototype. We start by discussing the practical functions required and the mechanism developed. We then discuss joint control and an experiment testing the prototype.