Optimal Gait Analysis of Snake Robot Dynamics

Though there have been a lot of research in the area of snake-robot kinematics and dynamics, a little attention has been given to find out an optimal gait for the robot. This optimal gait until now is being calculated using a graphical method. An attempt, here, is made to get these optimum gait parameters using evolutionary algorithms. We intend to optimize the input power consumed by the robot for a given propulsive speed. A popular multi-objective evolutionary algorithm developed by Deb et al., NSGA-II is used in this work and the results are presented. Results from an approximation of objective function through polynomials and from the actual simulation are presented. Two different frictional models are considered and their results are given. The results are in good agreement with the literature. A parametric study is also included to find minimum population size and number of generations. The performance metrics are used to justify the parametrization.