Quasistatic Motion of Multilink Mechanisms

In this chapter, quasistatic motions of a multilink articulated snake-like mechanism along a rough horizontal plane are studied. The links of the mechanism are consecutively connected by revolute joints. Coulomb’s dry friction acts between the links and the underlying plane. The mechanism is actuated by the drives located at the joints. In the quasistatic motion mode, all links of the mechanism move with very small velocities and accelerations, which allows treating the entire motion as a continuous sequence of equilibria and use the static equations for calculations. The quasistatic motions are significantly inferior to the motions that alternate slow and fast phases in terms of the velocity, however, they impose minimal requirements on the force and power parameters of the drives. Various types of wave-like longitudinal motions of the mechanism are investigated. The control torques that provide these motions are calculated. Apart from a multilink snake-like system with revolute joints, a triangular-configuration system with prismatic (translational) joints is considered. This system moves along a rough horizontal plane due to the change in the lengths of the sides of the triangle.