Wednesday 13 January 2010

OmniTread Snake Robot

The OmniTread robot was built by engineering students at the University of Michigan. Its body consists of seven segments connected by pneumatic bellows.

Treads on all four sides of the segments give it traction against surfaces, and the connecting bellows can inflate or deflate to provide stiffness or flexibility as needed. The robot can squeeze through a four-inch hole or ascend a vertical tube. The robot is designed to traverse extremely difficult terrain, such as the rubble of a collapsed building.



(thanks Cora)

2 comment(s):

Betsy said...

makes a helle of a noise!

Unknown said...

I wonder if you could program one to have memory so that it could return to exactly it's same point it started.Or, for example, it could be fitted with a camera and be sent through earthquake rubble to find trapped people and then send a data that could help retreive the victim or return to where contact was made and lead in a water supply to buy precious time to the trapped person.
Saving lives........