Bio-inspired multi-joint snake robots offer the advantages of terrain adaptability due to their limbless structure and high flexibility.
However, a series of dozens of motor units in typical multiple-joint snake robots results in a heavy body structure and hundreds of watts of high power consumption.
This paper presents a joint-repositionable, inner-wireless snake robot that enables multi-joint-like locomotion using a low-powered underactuated mechanism.
The snake robot, consisting of a series of flexible passive links, can dynamically change its joint coupling configuration by repositioning motor-driven joint units along rack gears inside the robot.
Additionally, a soft robot skin wirelessly powers the internal joint units, avoiding the risk of wire tangling and disconnection caused by the movable joint units.
The combination of the joint-repositionable mechanism and the wireless-charging-enabled soft skin achieves a high degree of bending, along with a lightweight structure of 1.3 kg and energy-efficient wireless power transmission of 7.6 watts.
A. Kanada, R. Takahashi, K. Hayashi, R. Hosaka, W. Yukita, Y. Nakashima, T. Yokota, T. Someya, M. Kamezaki, Y. Kawahara, M. Yamamoto, “Joint-repositionable Inner-wireless Planar Snake Robot,” IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), Vol. 10, No. 5, pp. 4994-5001, 2025.