Port-controlled Hamiltonian based control of snake robots

This paper proposes a novel control method for path-following of joints of a snake robot. The proposed method applies the port-controlled Hamiltonian based approach, which has originally been proposed for a full-actuated friction-less system. This paper extends the controller for an under-actuated system with friction. It is proven that, by the proposed controller, the path-following of the joints is achieved. The validity of the controller is checked through simulations. Furthermore, simulation results suggest that the controller is robust to modeling errors.