Snake locomotion inspires search and rescue robots

Snakes are very capable of slithering up trees, rocks and shrubbery and by studying how these serpents move, Johns Hopkins engineers have created a snake robot that can nimbly and stably climb large steps. The team's new findings are published in Journal of Experimental Biology and Royal Society Open Science.

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"We look to these creepy creatures for movement inspiration because they're already so adept at stably scaling obstacles in their day-to-day lives. Hopefully our robot can learn how to bob and weave across surfaces just like snakes," said Chen Li, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at The Johns Hopkins University and the papers' senior author.

Previous studies had mainly observed snake movements on flat surfaces, but rarely in 3D terrain except for on trees, said Li, and don't account for real-life large obstacles such as rubble and debris that search and rescue robots would have to climb over.