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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?)"
You're referring to Polybot, which has Generation I 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.
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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
It's My Tea and I'll Drink it if I Want To!
This really is not too new. This person has been doing impressive things with robosnakes for at least 15 years.... http://www.snakerobots.com/