Abstract
The exploration of new lands has always been a source of motivation for mankind. Despite the common idea that our planet is fully known, a huge number of inaccessible places still remain unvisited today, especially below the surface. Recent advances in robotics allow some of these locations to be explored by unmanned vehicles. This paper presents the design of a three modules lighter-than-air vehicle specifically conceived to autonomously explore inaccessible caves and underground environments. The design is inspired from an arthropod, Scutigera coleoptrata, a long-legged centipede commonly found in our houses. Instead of crawling on walls like its biological counterpart, the robotic scutigera hovers and flies in cave tunnels. The aim is to develop a flexible semi-rigid, segmented airship that can withstand long, smooth explorations of caves while transmitting in real-time the images and sounds that it captures. This paper presents the equations of motion for a single module, and experimental results to identify the physical properties of the Scutigera modules. For simulation and control, we develop the model of the multibody system, based on the kinematics of the modules and the dynamics of the vehicle derived using Kane’s equations. Our approach can be extended for an n-bodies system. A three-segment motion is illustrated with simplified scenarios in the horizontal plane using head actuation only. Finally, a structural design of the modules is presented and supported with a proof-of-concept prototype.
