Validation of Tumbling Robot Dynamics with Posture Manipulation for Closed-Loop Heading Angle Control

Navigating rugged terrain and steep slopes is a challenge for mobile robots. Conventional legged and wheeled systems struggle with these environments due to limited traction and stability. Northeastern University's COBRA (Crater Observing Bio-inspired Rolling Articulator), a novel multi-modal snake-like robot, addresses these issues by combining traditional snake gaits for locomotion on flat and inclined surfaces with a tumbling mode for controlled descent on steep slopes. Through dynamic posture manipulation, COBRA can modulate its heading angle and velocity during tumbling. This paper presents a reduced-order cascade model for COBRA's tumbling locomotion and validates it against a high-fidelity rigid-body simulation, presenting simulation results that show that the model captures key system dynamics.