Frederik Lamping, Kristin M. de Payrebrune

• This work aims to improve the design of a snake-like soft robot in terms of its velocity of locomotion by a geometric model. Therefore, we determine the locomotion of the snake-like soft robot as the result of a given excitation curvature and a given friction anisotropy between the robot and the ground.Varying the design parameters of the robot in the model allows to identify important parameters to increase the velocity of locomotion of the snake-like soft robot. Whereas its body design is sufficient, the transverse friction of its artificial skin is the main parameter to be improved. The transverse friction can be adjusted by turning the scales of the artificial skin. The velocity of locomotion of the robot increases significantly by this simple trick.