Slashdot Mirror
Scandinavian Scientists Designing Robotic Snakes
Cowards Anonymous writes "The Sintef Group, a research company based in Trondheim, Norway, announced that it's designing a robot based on snakes. The 1.5-meter long robots, which are made of aluminum, are being designed to inspect and clean complicated industrial pipe systems that are typically narrow and inaccessible to humans. The intelligent robots have multiple joints to enable them to twist vertically and climb up through pipe systems to locate leaks in water systems, inspect oil and gas pipelines and clean ventilation systems."
Then they'll have to design robotic rats too, so the robotic snakes have something to eat.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
Where is John Connor when you need him?
More than you ever wanted to know about devices that inspect/clean, etc. the internals of pipes. These snakes sound like a logical next step. Boring to you, fascinating to me.
Robot snakes on a plane?
on a plane.
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
...Why'd it have to be snakes?
I can only assume this is somehow related to another Indiana Jones movie.
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
The summery looks awfully similar to things CMU has already done - see hack a day
4Z5TX
I want these mutha fuckin robotic snakes out these mutha fuckin complicated industrial pipe systems!
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
...hey, they named a city after that planet from Speaker for the Dead!
http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/06/robotic-snake-moves-by-pushing-off-obstacles/ I remember reading an article about a guy designing robotic snakes more than 10 years ago. Hardly surprising that they have found an application for them now.
Show a man some news, distract him for an hour. Show a man some mod points, distract him for the rest of his life.
In time, they will miniaturize the things a bit more, and use it to inspect our pipes. I can already picture the nurse saying "Now this is not going to hurt a bit, just bend over and I'll insert this tiny little robotic thing (BoaScope TM), and it'll be over in a minute. If you feel it squirming inside you, it's all perfectly normal, dear."
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
Python?
From SINTEF's website:
LocationsSINTEF has approximately 2000 employees, 1300 of which are located in Trondheim and 450 in Oslo. We have offices in Bergen, Stavanger and Ålesund, in addition to offices in Houston, Texas (USA), Skopje (the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), Rio de Janeiro (Brasil) and a laboratory in Hirtshals (Denmark). SINTEF's head office is in Trondheim. Perhaps the submitter didn't want the scientists in Denmark to feel left out?
Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute built "robots based on snakes" quite a while back. In fact the project description page was last updated in November 2006. You can find more info about the project at, funnily enough, SnakeRobot.com with videos.
So next they'll have to design a robotic mongoose to clean out the robotic snake pipe cleaners when they malfunction and clog up the pipes.
"The intelligent robots have multiple joints to enable them to twist vertically and climb up through pipe systems to locate leaks in water systems, inspect oil and gas pipelines and clean ventilation systems."
Kind of like the ones on airplanes?
This is not new, actuaclly...
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/22/1849235
Another reason that we need a "-1 Too much information" mod!
I misread "Scandivian dentists designing robotic snakes". It made very little sense.
I hate it when stories like these refer to thier products as "intelligent". Unless they're claiming to have developed AI, it's just plain inaccurate.
It's gonna take your life tonight
Mechanical reptilian might
Shed it's metal skin and destroy
It's such a better METAL SNAKE
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
I can see another movie coming.... turbo robotic snakes on a plane of course with half of it written by morons on the internet creating lines with excessive swears.
Mike Rowe, I'm looking at you, buddy.
Seriously, if robots are going to be cleaning narrow and inaccessible pipes, what dirty jobs will be left? Aside from animal husbandry (I don't think even robots want to go there).
Maybe the submitter is Swedish.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Imagine the terror police getting hold of this idea. You'd get these things coming up through your plumbing to kill you.
That's actually a misconception however. Denmark is incorrectly labelled as part of Scandinavia, even by supposedly reputable sources. Scandinavia is the peninsula named after the mountain range on it, the Scandic mountains. Ever since Sweden kicked Denmark out of their holdings on the peninsula(Including parts of what is now Sweden, and all of Norway), they haven't been part of Scandinavia.
However, it carries a lot of political inertia, especially when people equate the Nordic Countries(Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland) with Scandinavia.
..."Snakes in a Drain"
Having a dead snake cluttering up a critical pipe would be no fun! Send in another snake! :o)
All robots aren't the same just because they have a common snakey look. The difference here is that movement method is entirely different.
Fine print: I work in internet advertising.
from TA "With 10 to 11 joints, each with a corresponding set of plastic wheels".
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
Already back in 2000, Xerox PARC had a modular robot prototype that could reconfigure itself into various shapes, like a wheel, a spider, or indeed a snake for narrow places. It was wicked cool, and as usual Xerox has failed to profit from it.
-Lars
I thought spider bots were used to maintain ventilation systems? Or have I been playing too much Deus Ex?
"XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, use more." - Anonymous Coward
I can see the sequel now
...Welcome our new roto-rooter overlords
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
I notice that this is only your second comment, and that the first was at the end of 2003(!!)
Can we assume that you *really* spent 4 1/2 years crafting this finely-worded masterpiece? Jesus, talk about matching the braindead racist stereotype, I bet it took you so long because the drool kept shorting out your keyboard.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
If I were Dr Evil (gratuitous wikipedia link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr_Evil), I would immediately invest 50% of my net worth into robotic snake research.
I would not rest until every man, woman, and child were at constant risk from robot-snake-carried explosives, lasers, poisons, and clenching razor-sharp titanium jaws.
Robotic snakes not just on *a* plane, but on *every* plane.
What an indescribably beautiful day for technology.
They'll never top this, never.
I can recreate the epic masterpiece of cinematography that was BOA VS PYTHON in the comfort of my own home.
Anyone else think the comments just weren't rendering right before they turned off ABP and saw ads?
Why did it have to be snakes??
Life would be easier if I had the source code.
They prefer to be called cybermats.
This is a total non-event. The company has merely announced they want to build these things, from the article itself: "The company hopes to have a working prototype ready for testing by the end of the year."
So not even a working prototype yet? Why is this front page news? Researchers and companies have been trying to build robotic snakes for years, with varying levels of success. One more company throws its hat in the ring and doesn't even offer anything novel or groundbreaking that would make their design superior.
If you want to see snake robots then take a look at Howie Choset's work at CMU (1) (2) (3). That guy has been working on this problem for a long time with some brilliant people and they've got some good designs. Not saying he's got the ultimate solution, but honestly he was testing some of these designs 8 years ago. At least he has something interesting to show other than this company's underweight press release.
In other news I'm building a fully self-aware AI. I might have a prototype to test at the end of the year, where's my front page link?
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
To full-on, real-life tentacle s3x!! Ingenuity like this brings a tear to my eye...
nothin' sounds quite like an 808
All kidding aside, these could be a huge breakthrough. We (those with indoor plumbing) lose 40% of our water supply to exfiltration. Sewage treatment plants are at capacity and routinely suffer from cross-connects and infiltration. For civil and chemical processes, these devices promise lower costs, increased service-life and decreased pollution
This will be marketed as a sex toy within the decade. Gotta file a patent on autonomous robotic lovers...
Please check http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/22/1849235 :-)
"-Who said sit down?!"
-- S. Ballmer @ MSDC 2003.
Do they sell them at Ikea with a cool unpronounceable name?