Reconfigurable robot withstands blows to complete assault course

Despite being kicked and pushed around this hexapod still manages to autonomously overcome an office assault course.

Dubbed Snake Monster, the robot has been developed with modular actuators by the Biorobotics Lab’s snake robot project at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

They say that series-elastic actuators in each joint allow simultaneous position-velocity-torque control, enabling compliant motions using a simple alternating-tripod walking gait.

The reconfigurable robot was developed in six months with funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Snake Monster isn’t the first robot to be given a good walloping, as can be witnessed in the following Engineer feature from 2009. Click here to read and see more.