Snake Robots is a novel treatment of theoretical and practical topics
related to snake robots: robotic mechanisms designed to move like
biological snakes and able to operate in challenging environments in
which human presence is either undesirable or impossible. Future
applications of such robots include search and rescue, inspection and
maintenance, and subsea operations. Locomotion in unstructured
environments is a focus for this book.
The text targets the disparate muddle of approaches to modelling,
development and control of snake robots in current literature, giving a
unified presentation of recent research results on snake robot
locomotion to increase the reader's basic understanding of these
mechanisms and their motion dynamics and clarify the state of the art in
the field. The book is a complete treatment of snake robotics, with
topics ranging from mathematical modelling techniques, through
mechatronic design and implementation, to control design strategies. The
development of two snake robots is described and both are used to
provide experimental validation of many of the theoretical results.
Snake Robots is written in a clear and easily understandable manner
which makes the material accessible by specialists in the field and
non-experts alike. Numerous illustrative figures and images help readers
to visualize the material. The book is particularly useful to new
researchers taking on a topic related to snake robots because it
provides an extensive overview of the snake robot literature and also
represents a suitable starting point for research in this area.
