Sara Wickenhiser | Searcharxiv

arXiv2026

ARCSnake V2: Mechanical Adaptations For An Amphibious Multi-Domain Screw-Propelled Snake-Like Robot

Robotic exploration in extreme environments, such as caves, oceans, and extraplanetary surfaces, poses significant challenges, specifically locomotion across diverse terrains. Conventional wheeled or legged robots often struggle in such contexts due to variability in traction. This paper presents ARCSnake V2, an adaptation of ARCSnake V1 with additional amphibious capabilities for aquatic environments. ARCSnake V2 combines the high mobility of hyper-redundant snake robots with the terrain versatility of Archimedean screw propulsion. Key contributions include a water-sealed mechanical design with serially linked screw and joint actuation, and an integrated buoyancy control system. Extensive experiments validate its underwater capabilities for diving and surfacing, as well as force-regulated actuation. These capabilities position ARCSnake V2 as a versatile platform for exploration, search-and-rescue, and environmental monitoring in multi-domain settings.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2024

NASU -- Novel Actuating Screw Unit: Origami-inspired Screw-based Propulsion on Mobile Ground Robots

Screw-based locomotion is a robust method of locomotion across a wide range of media including water, sand, and gravel. A challenge with screws is their significant number of impactful design parameters that affect locomotion performance. One crucial parameter is the angle of attack (also called the lead angle), which has been shown to significantly impact the performance of screw propellers in terms of traveling velocity, force produced, degree of slip, and sinkage. As a result, the optimal design choice may vary significantly depending on application and mission objectives. In this work, we present the Novel Actuating Screw Unit (NASU). It is the first screw-based propulsion design that enables dynamic reconfiguration of the angle of attack for optimized locomotion across multiple media and use cases. The design is inspired by the kresling unit, a mechanism from origami robotics, and the angle of attack is adjusted with a linear actuator, while the entire unit is spun on its axis to generate propulsion. NASU is integrated into a mobile test bed and experiments are conducted in various media including gravel, grass, and sand. Our experiment results indicate a trade-off between locomotive efficiency and velocity exists in regards to angle of attack, and the proposed design is a promising direction for reconfigurable screws by allowing control to optimize for efficiency or velocity.

cs.RO↗