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A Modular Snake Robot

Posted by kdawson on Thu Mar 06, 2008 09:22 AM
from the snakes-in-a-pipe dept.
Robotics Hardware
StCredZero writes "Researchers at CMU are working on a Modular Snake Robot. A video from this site is up on YouTube. In addition to being able to traverse a wide variety of terrain, the robot can also climb poles, the inside of pipes and conduits, small grooves in walls, and probably more. It can also swim. Many robots can do one of those tasks. This one can do them all. That's quite an accomplishment. This has tremendous potential for the maintenance of fiber optic networks, pipelines, and plumbing in large buildings; and also as a spy device. (I wonder how loud it is?)"
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Submission: Awesome Modular Snake Robot! by StCredZero (169093)
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A Modular Snake Robot 50 Comments More /

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  • but useful. the telcos would sure like one of those. the us govt. would also see an interest
    • Uh they're far from actually making delicate repairs on fiber.. but I was very wowed by it snaking around on that horizonal pole. That must be some crazy programming for it be able to keep balance and not fall off.
      • Wouldn't it depend on how it's built?
        If it's got sensors that tell it where its point of contact are, then it should be pretty simple to keep at least two loops around the horizontal pole.

        Maybe I'm completely off, but that's how I'd do it.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by phillips321 (955784)
        The problem we are at is that any robots we make have crap movement and physical structure but we can 100% control their brain.
        On the alternative, live animals have the movement we desire sadly we have yet to 100% control their brains.

  • Hollwood calls (Score:5, Funny)

    by elrous0 (869638) * on Thursday March 06 2008, @09:26AM (#22662584)
    Does anyone else smell a "Snakes on a Plane" sequel?

  • Oblig (Score:3, Funny)

    by styryx (952942) on Thursday March 06 2008, @09:28AM (#22662606)
    I, for one....snake robots....etc....overlords.

  • Unfortunately (Score:5, Insightful)

    by d3ac0n (715594) on Thursday March 06 2008, @09:31AM (#22662630)
    They are still all Tethered units, which limits their functionality. Of course, they are still in the development stage, so a tethered unit is to be expected.

    It will be interesting to see if they can progress beyond tethered to wireless, and finally to fully autonomous units. I would imagine that they will need to get a bit bigger to accommodate the extra electronics needed.

    Still, a very cool and potentially VERY useful technology.
    • The prototype Evangelion [google.com] were tethered, but they did a whole lot!

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by wodon (563966)
      It seems that they can work wireless.
      The swimming motion does not use the tether.(5th section down in the linky below)
      http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~biorobotics/projects/modsnake/newwebsite/gaits/diff_gaits/index.html [cmu.edu]
    • Tethered is not necessarily a big limitation. Imagine you need to inspect a 200ft long pipe. Send it down (or UP!) the pipe, the tether is not a big deal. Unteathered is only important if you have to go a long distance, or have to go far down something you have to roll over. (did you notice the teather start to wind up in a few of them?)

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ivanjager (820414)
      No, they are not all tethered any more. They've had an untethered one for about a year now. I could go down and ask them how long exactly if anyone's really interested.

      They are pretty lound however, especially the untethered one I saw, as it needed a high speed fan on it to keep stuff cool. I don't remember exactly why they needed the fan, but I think it might have been because they didn't want huge heatsinks on the voltage regulators. The other source of noise of course is the sound of dozens of servos wit
  • I bet this would be an amazing tool for Police, Swat and the likes. I bet our boys over seas could find some uses for it as well to sneak into places undetected.

    Too bad it's probably really loud on hard surfaces and requires a massive cable bundle...
    • From the description of what it can do, it sounds like the answer to a lot of NASA's terrain negotiation problems. Anyone have an idea if this (perhaps on a larger scale) would suit them?
        • They're called tree snakes! Most snakes in the north are too small, but in the jungle, many live in trees (their kind of like poles)

  • Impressive (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Degreeless (1250850) on Thursday March 06 2008, @09:35AM (#22662694)

    It is an impressive feat though there ae issues of range, woth it being tethered it it's control/power, and also its application for maintenance may be limited to identifying faults depending upon whether suitable tools could be made withoput hampering the movement of the snake.

    Issues aside it also looks very cool, if a little creepy when it's climbing uyp that guy's leg.

  • Old news (Score:5, Interesting)

    by garett_spencley (193892) on Thursday March 06 2008, @09:39AM (#22662744) Journal
    I ordered one of these for my wife as a gift a little while ago. She gave me the weirdest "freaked out" look.

    Yeah kind of like your expression right now ...

    • Re:Old news (Score:5, Funny)

      by garett_spencley (193892) on Thursday March 06 2008, @10:11AM (#22663046) Journal
      Only on /. can a racy joke about robotic development and what women do alone in their bedrooms get modded "Interesting".
      • what women do alone in their bedrooms

        If she's your wife and she hasn't introduced you to her "toys" yet, you're missing out on half the fun :P

        Of course we are all speaking in theory because no one in slashdot is married, the only women we see are images on our computers and our mothers when we ascend from the basement (MOM!!! MORE HOT POCKETS!!!), and of course the wife and two kids I have in the picture here in my office are fake... they came with the frame :)
        • "If she's your wife and she hasn't introduced you to her "toys" yet, you're missing out on half the fun :P"

          She tried to ... but I'm not really into the whole "pain" thing. Nothing against anyone who is.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by truthful cynic (525883)
      This really is not too new. This person has been doing impressive things with robosnakes for at least 15 years.... http://www.snakerobots.com/ [snakerobots.com]

  • Robot Snakes (Score:5, Funny)

    by verbalcontract (909922) on Thursday March 06 2008, @09:42AM (#22662774)

    In addition to being able to traverse a wide variety of terrain, the robot can also climb poles, the inside of pipes and conduits, small grooves in walls, and probably more. It can also swim.

    Oh, so real snakes aren't scary enough? I have to worry about robot snakes too?

  • but will it blend? (Score:3, Funny)

    by lthown (737539) on Thursday March 06 2008, @09:43AM (#22662790)
    yeah, so it can climb and swim and stuff, but it apparently can't survive a good slashdotting.

  • Old hat (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Lars Clausen (1208) on Thursday March 06 2008, @09:44AM (#22662796)
    The ability to climb poles (and legs) is cute, but apart from that, Xerox PARC had a modular robot in 2000 that could not only be a snake, but could reconfigure itself into a ball or a spider to go faster or to traverse difficult terrain. It was extremely nifty, but like so much else from Xerox PARC, they never capitalized much on it.

    -Lars
    • When the Decepticons were near it would transform into a giant robot! Who knew that PARC was responsible for the autobots?

    • Re:Old hat (Score:5, Informative)

      by PlatyPaul (690601) on Thursday March 06 2008, @10:05AM (#22662988) Homepage Journal
      You're referring to Polybot [parc.com], which has Generation I [parc.com] listed at 1997. Polybot is a bit more flexible (har har) due to the fact that each module is entirely self-sufficient (aside from power, which they can channel from module to module as needed), although I haven't seen a demo of it handling water....

      "Already done" notwithstanding, it's nice to see a robot succeed so well in such varied scenarios.
    • John Calhoun of Glider [mac.com] fame built a snake robot back in the mid 90's. He showed it to me during the summer of 95. It wasn't water proof, couldn't climb cracks and tubes like this one can but otoh, it was untethered and could amble around his apartment.

      The thing that impressed me the most was he built it with hand tools in his apartment as he didn't have access to a machine shop.
  • If you check the video out, it looks cool. Youtube also points out other robot snake videos. It looks like the Japanese already have several types of things like this, they are wireless and apparently have on-board batteries, and seem to do most if not all of what this one does. So, is this really a big advance or just a bad copy-cat of a Japanese version?
  • Why does every summary involving robots contain a line in the summary about possible spy usage?

    It's like the editors are wearing my tinfoil hat for me...

  • Missing option ... (Score:4, Funny)

    by BESTouff (531293) on Thursday March 06 2008, @10:16AM (#22663114) Homepage
    Nice but ... can it fly ?
  • > This has tremendous potential for the maintenance of fiber optic networks, pipelines, and plumbing in large buildings; and also as a spy device... ...not to mention Action/Thriller sequels staring Samuel L. Jackson and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

    This summer: He traveled back in time to stop a post-apocolyptic future where terrorists rule the world with their robot-snake armies. But with their tremendous potential for the maintenance of fiber optic networks, pipelines, plumbing, and time-travel, two of them
  • I know I saw this exact video years ago, can't remember where.

    But I did see some stories on /. with very similar robots from 1999 and 2000.

    http://slashdot.org/articles/99/12/02/1234201.shtml?tid=126 [slashdot.org]
    http://slashdot.org/science/00/05/06/200224.shtml [slashdot.org]

  • Better Metal Snake (Score:3, Funny)

    by MaufTarkie (6625) on Thursday March 06 2008, @11:44AM (#22664204)
    Someone has been listening to Dethklok, I think. We're all doomed!
  • This is the most singularly coolest but most creepy and frightening thing I have ever seen on the net. I don't mind real snakes too much (my wife can't even look at one) but the look of this combined with the impressive things it can do for a robot are quite worrying and eerie. Am I not the only one to sit here with shivers going up my spine?
  • Battlebots 2000 season. Bigger, louder, more destructive, cooler looking.
    http://youtube.com/watch?v=7A7u86OyC_0 [youtube.com]
    • Bigger? OK. Louder? Probably. Cooler looking is subjective, for sure. But more destructive? I'd say they're both tied for zero in that category. That "battle worm" thing just flailed helplessly as a little car bashed it to death.

      For cooler looking my money's on the Japanese snake robot at the end of this video [youtube.com] -- its' much smoother than the one in the OP.

      • But more destructive? I'd say they're both tied for zero in that category.
        Aww, come on. Give the guy the credit he's due. As I recall, the snake did manage to flop over onto it's first opponent and win that match.
  • I'll tell you what this thing is good for: Freaking me RIGHT OUT.

    Pray, does it talk? (ob Monty Python joke)
  • Any robot that moves around like a biological entity is cool & a lot more productive than a javascript popup menu. Too bad they're not the current big thing.

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