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A Modular Snake Robot
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?)"
but useful. the telcos would sure like one of those. the us govt. would also see an interest
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Does anyone else smell a "Snakes on a Plane" sequel?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I, for one....snake robots....etc....overlords.
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.
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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...
Very cool, but what would be even cooler is if it had sensors and an electronic brain that could coordinate all its movements. That would be a greater breakthrough than just the robotic component.
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.
Robot robot robot robot robot robot snake snakkeeeee it's a robot snakkeeeee
but those these robotic snake overlords run Linux?
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
The prototype Evangelion were tethered, but they did a whole lot!
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
Goatse man, is that you?
Oh, so real snakes aren't scary enough? I have to worry about robot snakes too?
yeah, so it can climb and swim and stuff, but it apparently can't survive a good slashdotting.
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
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?
Everything you know is wrong, Just forget the words and sing along.
if you are freaked out by snakes, check them out http://www.snopes.com/photos/bugs/camelspider.asp
When the Decepticons were near it would transform into a giant robot! Who knew that PARC was responsible for the autobots?
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This is definetelly very promissing technology. I can easily imagine letting one of those (tethered, why now) devices into sewer (or even into toilet) two, three blocks away from the target.
Does it run Linux!!!
Its nice to be important but its more important to be nice
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...
Nice but ... can it fly ?
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?
> 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 followed him: one good, the other evil...
I see a trememdous market for this in the porn industry....
Guns are for wimps... Use a crossbow.. this way you can pin them to their chair when you go postal.
I know I saw this exact video years ago, can't remember where.
/. with very similar robots from 1999 and 2000.
But I did see some stories on
http://slashdot.org/articles/99/12/02/1234201.shtml?tid=126
http://slashdot.org/science/00/05/06/200224.shtml
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is it poisonous?
-x- Sorry my bad English. I'll have him tarred and feathered. -x-
Nature is a pretty cool designer. The snake... no limbs and yet it can negotiate some crazy terrain. Brilliant!
I think looking to natures designs for inspiration is an excellent approach to robotics.
If I wanted my mind made up for me, I'd do it myself!!
Someone has been listening to Dethklok, I think. We're all doomed!
Without you I'm one step closer to happiness without violence.
Picture the future. As StCredZero suggests, the unleashing of robots into society will raise privacy and other legal questions. The questions can in part be answered with devices that resemble the end-user license agreements we see on software today. Robot "terms of service" will be one tool for regulating robot bad behavior or unwanted spying. http://hack-igations.blogspot.com/2008/01/robot-surveillance-contracts.html
Benjamin Wright, Dallas, Texas, benjaminwright.us
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?
John Calhoun of Glider 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.
It's a lot of time and money put into chaining servos together, something like this could likely be put together using parts from lynxmotion.
What would be impressive is to get onboard power, communication and sensors onto this body without hampering its physical abilities, then give it some sort of capability for autonomy. This thing presents a sensor integration nightmare, and solving that would be useful indeed.
Oh man, this comment is HOT!!!! ... *sizzle*
Nah, I can think of far more entertaining stuff. Like programming one to give your least favourite luser/coworker/boss/etc a colonoscopy.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Battlebots 2000 season. Bigger, louder, more destructive, cooler looking.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=7A7u86OyC_0
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
Cool, but can it traverse through Jeffries Tubes? Imagine those robots replicating and spreading throughout the NCC-1701-D (instead of Nanites)
I'll tell you what this thing is good for: Freaking me RIGHT OUT.
Pray, does it talk? (ob Monty Python joke)
use your turn signal! you people act like it's divulging information to the enemy
A friend of mine works on this:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5Tq8dgVZLmI
http://birg.epfl.ch/
Or does it just hiss pseudo-random noise?
Okay, that's really cool, but does it eat apples? :P
Anyway, I watched the snake hanging on a horizontal pipe in the upper area of a room. Maybe they could be used as mobile security cameras that could follow a susipcious person or possibly, if it can, communicate to other snakes about the problem.
Hmmm... this brings a whole new meaning to name: "Solid Snake."
-Aegis Runestone-
http://youtube.com/watch?v=cJuNe50uuzk
IMO, this one looks cooler. Kinda hisses too.
-Aegis Runestone-
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.
Would be great for colonoscopy.
"Dude, you got me up for a snake?"
- Clever Nick Name reviews python.
or is it remote controlled? The wires suggest that it isn't.
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Nano segmented metallic snake things invade small town California.
http://www.amazon.com/Crawlers-John-Shirley/dp/0345446526/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204910682&sr=8-1
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