Juan Gonzalez:PhD Thesis

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Modular Robotics and Locomotion: Application to Limbless robots

Preface by Dave Calkings

Snakes aren't the kind of cuisine most people look for when ordering, but the speciality of the house was Juan González-Gómez's amazing servo-driven snakebot. All snake robots I've ever seen --even Gavin Miller's amazing bots- cheat. They replicate a snake's motion, be it sinusoidal, caterpillar, or side-winding, but always with wheels on the bottom to eliminate friction and help the bot along. Gonzalez, however, perfected a system that most closely replicates how snakes really move. There are no wheels on his robots. Just his own servo housings. Watching a snake robot skitter across the floor is always cool. But when you pick up Juan's bot and realize that it's got no wheels and can still move the same way any snake can, you're truly awed. Even more inspiring is the fact that his bots are totally modular. You can have as few as two modules or as many as 256 -- good for both garter snakes and anacondas.

Dave Calkins
President of the Robotics Society of America,
Lecturer of the Computer Engineering Program at San Francisco State University
Founder of ROBOlympics/RoboGames - the International all-events robot competition


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  • 6/March/2009: This page is started