Flatness Based Robust Control of Planar Snake Robot for Linearly Parameterizable Uncertainties

The state-of-the-art approach for solving the ma-neuvering control problem of a planar snake robot involves the adoption of a multi-layered control methodology. A gait function is imposed to achieve a desired body shape and subsequently, the gait parameters are adapted to obtain desired heading and velocity in separate layers. To facilitate simpler control design and trajectory planning, a differential flatness based approach has been proposed in this work utilizing the same serpenoid gait function. Filter tracking error based flat outputs have been chosen to obtain a flat system that can utilized to design suitable control law. A robust-adaptive control law has been designed for the flat system considering linearly parametrizable uncertainties which results into UUB stability of the same as verified through Lyapunov's method. Simulation studies affirm the performance of the proposed approach for a planar snake robot with parametric uncertainties.