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Science

NASA Snake-Bots 83

Posted by timothy from the please-don't-gain-consciousness dept.
faqBastard writes: "NASA's been working on some pretty cool snake-bots for exploring outer space. All kinds of neat features and capabilities ... " Robotic snakes certainly seem to be slithering into our future. OK, they look practical and intriguing -- but they give me the willies.
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NASA Snake-Bots More

NASA Snake-Bots

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  • Re:Mark Yim (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    A Japanese researcher - Shigeo Hirose - published a book on his snake robots in 1987, so this idea is at least 15-20 years old. It's refreshing to see robots that don't follow the typical humanoid plan. Trying to imitate a human limits our thinking.

  • Okay... (Score:1)

    by pb ( 1020 )
    It sounds like an interesting idea, but how are they going to help assemble solar cells?

    At least this is a step towards having small, autonomous robots that can do useful tasks humans can't... work on it for another 10 or 20 years, and we might start get to work on nanotech and humanoid robots again... :)
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
  • These would certainly present a possible way of finding subterrainian life. Burrowing robotic snakes, nifty.
  • I just woke up, and I parsed the headline as "NSA Snakebots Slither Into Your Furniture".

    That sure as heck woke me up.
  • They laughed at Newton.

    They laughed at Einstein too!

    But, they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

    (with apologies to Carl Sagan)

  • Imagine snake technology applied to an Armoured Personal Carrier. It could for make some cool scenes in a movie.
  • Think these are cool? Nah. The best I ever saw was the one built by Mark Setrakian for the 1997 Robot Wars. Check out his Snake [teamsinister.com].
  • Darnit. That link should have been
    http://www.teamsinister.com/robotsnav.html
  • The main problem that I see (and it was mentioned earlier) is temperature. You want to use this thing in space, right? So then you have to take a wide temperature swings into account. Esp if this thing is supposed to be in deep space (what is that, past mars orbit?) where there isn't an apprciable ammount of heat from the sun.

    So the actuators would have to work at close to absolute zero (hrm, space is at what +0.3 kelvin or was it 3?) so anything based on deformation is going to have a hard time of it. Or liquid lubrication for that matter.

    Anyone know how spacesuits work? Internal heatingf for the gaskets around the joints?
  • moderate this up
  • Do you think Mark Yim would do a slashdot interview? I think that would be the coolest interview ever (besides the Woz one). Please contact him, CmdrTaco/Hemos! Preeze! Pretty pretty preeze!
  • I wonder if you could train the robotic snakes
    to ingest grits - could give them extra mileage
    on the surface of Mars. Then when the space
    dudes finally arrive to populate the place, they'll be confronted by a horrible race of mutant, robotic redneck snakes.
  • Personally, I hate robotic snakes. In all
    honesty, they get _way_ too much press. Hell
    I've seen then several times just on Slashdot.
    Die Robot Snakes Die!
  • NASA's plan should work just fine... until these robo-snakes encounter an exterrestrial civilisation that celebrates whacking day.

  • <ATTITUDE RELIGION=CHRISTIAN TYPE=FANATICAL>
    Snakes are the work of Satan. As stated in The Good Book, Genesis, Chapter 1, Verse 2, "And so you shall be forced to crawl upon your belly until the end of time." Obviously He would not approve of the work of Satan being taken into space when it was obviously meant by Him to crawl upon the ground. My People, My Brothers, let us rally against this Satanic NASA group in harmony and stop the works of Satan from going up into the heavens.
    </ATTITUDE>
  • Think of it..... the cobra personality chip and the user can install the fangs/poison.

    Odds are such mods will ship after sonly ships the pit-bull kit for the Abio.
  • I saw this stuff on the Discovery Channel a few months ago. It seems like a decent deal. They were showing off what they could do at the time, and link up was one of them. They are just as articulate as real snakes, if not even more so, so the possibilities abound.
  • At the 1998 BEAM Workshop, I had the opportunity to meet Mark Tilden, inventor of BEAM [lanl.gov] and employee of Los Alamos National Laboratories. He demonstrated something along these lines, but more in line with the BEAM philosophy. I don't know what happened with it, though. If you're interested in more about BEAM, check out Solarbotics [solarbotics.com], a really great Canadian company with tons of info, kits, and general resources.
    Phyrkrakr
    "God doesn't play dice"-Einstein
  • What makes these snakes better or worse than Mars Lander for smashing into nearby planets with?
  • Neither. Hooks. You jump up on it's back after it responds to the thumper.
    --
  • I think you're vastly underestimating the amount of current it presently draws...

    Well, the present arrangement -- with huge metal-looking brackets and huge gear boxes -- is obviously a compromise to get something working quickly and easily. I'm not a mechanical designer, but it looks like there is plenty of room for improvement. They just have to spend the effort to optimize the design. After all, real snakes are reptiles (not even mammals) so they obviously aren't pushing the mechanical power requirements.

  • Like we don't have enough pest control problems already, we have to start making our own!
  • I can't see how a turbine attached to a robot inside a pipe could ever work. The gas flow would tend to push the whole robot forwards - unless the robot can grab the side of the pipe the turbine would not rotate.
  • Of course, Microsoft could better that by coming up with a space travelling Barney. No no, I don't even want to think about that one...

  • I don't know if anyone mentioned this (if they did, it didn't show up on my threshold, anyway ;) but if you're interesting in Robotic Snakes (apparently, so of you aren't ;) Here is another good site that has some working prototypes independantly developped. http://www.snakerobots.com/ [snakerobots.com] There are some nice MPEG movie shots of the things working, and some nice still images, if that's your thing. They look really nice, but I don't know if I'd send them into space. ;)
  • Add a latex skin, some good marketing and you could take the erotic film industry by storm. It's something fun to write on a CV.
  • Actually Newton was heavily into alchemy. And I doubt if anybody laughted at him then.
  • how would it burn the methane?! if its a tiny as they say it is it could only carry about enough O2 to power the turbine for a few seconds.
  • don't get me wrong, I like to read about the latest scientific breakthroughs as much as the next guy. but why does /. love to post references to 'jee wouldn't it be cool if we could do [X]' type of science reporting? i mean it seems like some nasa scientist came up with this idea over lunch and decided to put out a press release. there is no consideration given to a possible power source if its going to operate on other planets (crucial), and little thought about how such a robot would even be designed. as usual it's chock full 'o wild speculation and thin on real science. for instance the report says:
    "The tiny snake, just 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) in diameter, could be used to inspect gas lines here on Earth as well. Marzwell said the snake could use the pressure of the gas within the pipeline to turn a tiny turbine to produce its own electricity."
    huh? and how would you power that turbine if your robot is in a pipe full of pure methane?
    with so much REAL scientific discovery going on (http://unisci.com/stories/20002/0504003.htm for one example) why does /. feel the need to post on the type of discovery that i can bet i'll never see another development on in the next 10 years?
  • And while the snakes are doing their evil slithery thing, an evil beuacrat will keep on insisting that "nothing is wrong". At the end of the movie, he will fall into a pit of the evil robotic snakes.

  • If nothing else, the applicants to NASA would (pardon the pun) skyrocket... half the worldwide male (and part of the female) population would work toward that goal... hell, if NASA didn't hire them, they'd probably volunteer...
    sign me up, BTW...
  • Am I the only one that sees the development of robotic snakes as one step closer to creating the first wave of robotic politicians?

    Robotic politicans? I'm all for 'em... We'd have those hacked within the hour, i mean, shit... they'd have to have corruption built in... Once they're hacked, m$, aol, et. al. are goin DOWN!
    Any reports of people putting linux on a snake-bot? i'd say we should put 'em into a beowulf cluster, but they're kinda designed to cluster...
  • hey, they laugh at me, too...
  • I dunno if this would be very feasible, but what about lasers or other optical means for transferring data down the segments? That would make detachable sections a lot easier, I think.
  • >Does anyone else here see the problem with sending an electrical generator into a gas line?

    Not really - the risk of explosion comes from sparks, so you just build a solid-state snake that cannot spark. Eg, use brushless turbines. Having the whole thing running on 3V will _seriously_ decrease the possibility of generating enough heat for an explosion. Place the live sections inside a resin block, and so on. It'd be pretty safe.

    Another thing - there would presumably be no oxygen in a gas line - can the gas even explode without some kind of leak?
  • >And then they want detachable segments! That probably means electrical connectors (unless they put a radio transciever in each segment,
    >which makes it a networking nightmare). On every design project I've ever been on, connectors have been the single largest pain in the ass
    >(picking a microcontroller or transistor is easy compared to picking a connector). And not only is it a connector, it has to attach/detach (in
    >vacuum) under the supervision of a robotic (read dumb) brain.

    I've seen robots that just use powerful magnets, thus they can be as dumb as a rock and still couple successfully - the poles of the magnets ensure that the coupling is orientated correctly to line up the connector plates, and the strength of them means the connectors only have to stumble into the vague area of the target to get a successful connection. A heavily geared motor gives sufficient strength to de-couple.

    Sometimes, simple solutions work surprisingly well :-)

  • This really does seem to be the logical way to go, snake shaped robots (looked more like worms to me) seem a lot more adaptable, and agile than something with wheels. Plus think of what any life forms we stumble across would think, "Oh shit, all fear the snake gods!". Maybe we can get these things to shoot hot grits ;)

    .brad

    PS imagine a beowolf cluster of..... oh nevermind


    drink tea
    http://www.specialtea.com [specialtea.com]
  • Is there an analogy here:
    Robotic politicians running open-source operating systems = democracy
    Robotic politicians running proprietary operating systems = iron curtain
    I'm with the comment that Windows would be easier to hack. Fits the analogy well ... friends from former USSR tell that manipulating the system was commonplace.
    wayathinkaboutthat?


    ...................

    ... paka chubaka

  • but i dont think nasa could come up with anything as good as a furby. could you imagine a furby carrying vital space station equipment in hostile enviroments while at the same time looking cute and cuddly? nasa should be going to toysrus for their equipment. (even if they do take home top secret projects for the kids to play with at home)
  • Now here's an idea. Those Lego Mindstorms, create some sort of AI and develop some sort of herbivorous robot. Then, develop robots that kill the herbivores by taking the batteries to power themselves. If the herbivores evolve and try do defend themselves, pat yourself on the back for a job well done.
    It would be really interesting to create artificial life...


    When the pack animals stampede, it's time to soak the ground with blood to save the world. We fight, we die, we break our cursed bonds.
  • It _is_ an urban legend. It's possible for a long tapeworm or another type of worm parasite to be like that though...

    I'm sure that any bipedal or four-legged (quadripedal?) aliens can run or swim unaided, bipedal ones could climb unaided, and winged aliens can fly without machines.

    But that alien's horror movie... that would be interesting to do... stand in the alien's shoes for a moment and see just how savage the human race is.


    When the pack animals stampede, it's time to soak the ground with blood to save the world. We fight, we die, we break our cursed bonds.
  • you know the one where the woman drank some water and there was a tiny snake in it?
    the snake survives and lives in her intestines... she goes under the knife to get it removed, but it kept sliding away...
    yeah, i know im sick...


    When the pack animals stampede, it's time to soak the ground with blood to save the world. We fight, we die, we break our cursed bonds.
  • Wouldn't they be only useful to women and homosexuals though? What about us straight guys?
    I say robo-snakes can go to hell, i want my anatomically correct female robot woman.
    This way, too, she won't bitch about having to do all the cleaning... (=


    When the pack animals stampede, it's time to soak the ground with blood to save the world. We fight, we die, we break our cursed bonds.
  • They'd have to have a good OS... If they ran Windows, there would be a new president (or where i am, a prime minister) every other day...


    When the pack animals stampede, it's time to soak the ground with blood to save the world. We fight, we die, we break our cursed bonds.
  • Cool in theory, but limited in actual application, since a robot would need to be made out of certain materials, which would not necessarily be the ideal material to make the structure out of: using self-assembling robots made of metal and plastic to assemble a structure that would be better served by a block of carbon-concrete would be a waste of time. And the strength of a structure made of robots would worry me, too.
    This is why no one suggests that nanobots should compose the structures they create; they will merely use nearby raw material to create it.
  • Ars Robotica [arsrobotica.com] has an interview with Dr. Gavin Miller [arsrobotica.com]. Dr. Miller is known for his robot snakes. They have been featured at museums and are the inspiration for the NASA research features in the main link.
  • i have to admit i was wrong lisa these lizards have been a god send "ah...isn't that a little short sighted, what happens when we are overrun by lizards" "oh that simple we just realease wave after wave of deadly NASA robot snakes" "but what about when we are overrun by snakes?" "Its simple we just bring in a type of gorrilla that thrives of snakes?" "ok...but then what about the gorrillas" "that the beauty of it lisa when winter rolls in all the gorrillas will simply freeze to death."
  • All those nifty gears and things, how pretty! Since we're trying to emulate nature here, why not use some artificial muscle? Experimenters have been working on a material that 'flexes' and 'relaxes' depended on whether exposed to a base or acid (no chemical reaction, I think, just a use of properties). Apply that to this snake bot and you'd have yourself a slithering orthoscope! Meanwhile... I still am waiting for the ultimate machine to go and explore Mars... you know, the one that would actually change things back here.
  • Have a look at the Watersnake model on SodaConstructor [sodaplay.com] Software to operate robosnakes?
  • Something about it seems like a really neat software project, the various objects and structures you'd create-- how they move, how they break apart and get back together, maybe make different forms like starfish or T's (are they useful?). You could make up all sorts of cool stuff for them to do, and the routines would be fun to write. Lots of segment lists. Dunno, that was just the first thing that struck me.

    Reminds me of the constructor [sodaplay.com] at soda [soda.co.uk].

  • It is only a slight exageration to say the science by definition is unrealistic, and engineering is realistic.

    If the Wright brothers had stuck to realistic science, they would never have flown.

    If Einstein had stuck to realistic science, he would have been a patent examiner for the rest of his life.

    If Newton had stuck to realistic science -- now that's an interesting thought; would that have meant alchemy back then?

    Yes, all this is a simplistic exageration. But complaining about unrealistic science is simplistic exageration itself.

    --
  • Next week Katz is gonna write an article: Snake Sex Bots, a paradigm shift in the postmodern sex revolution where he will describe all the benefits of sex without explaining what sex is. He'll quote random sources nobody ever heard of, plagarize a few p0rn sites, and get flamed by 238 posters. Of the remaining 37 posts, 31 of them will indicate mild dissatisfaction with the article, and 6 will note they used a higher grade of toilet paper after reading the article to show Mr. Katz they cared.

    In the meantime, NASA will contact the NSA about hundreds of prank calls to Mission Control - apparently hundreds of people are calling in and breathing heavily or asking for phone sex. Oh, and like many other slashdot articles, it'll be filed in triplicate on the front page, and then the other copy (or two) will spontaniously disappear without a word said..

    (note for the humor-impaired: the above post was intended to be funny, not a troll).

  • I haven't been around there since winter break, so I don't know the current state of things exactly... that was one of the issues being looked at during my winter break, and surely something that would need to be improved vastly for space exploration.

    a tether has advantages, however -- especially when it tends to go wandering down hallways on its own (I was programming an older version, with a HC6811 as the brain, and exactly ZERO sensors) and when you have it climbing ladders and such.

    Lea
  • heh. I've pointed him at /. enough... if nothing's coming up, he might, though of course I couldn't speak for him. wheedle a bit, though, yes :)

    Lea
  • Solar cells, along with small batteries, would probably be sufficient. And if they're working in darkness, they can just use temporary mirrors.

    I think you're vastly underestimating the amount of current it presently draws... however, if you're in free-fall, you wouldn't need such hefty motors, which would solve most of that problem. the problem with that solution is that from what I've talked with the NASA guys about, they were thinking also surface applications (they make some pretty sweet freefall robots too, but mostly mars rovers). the one that NASA's got (unless they rebuilt it since I've seen it) is made out of PVC and little servos -- it's quite weak. the newer polybot (there's pictures of it on the parc page) is VERY heavy, with hefty motors to move it around.

    The snake will need to perform complex folding and grasping motions using a dozen joints. Designing that control system will be formidable

    you're telling me! it's really very interesting controls research stuff. what do you do with a few hundred little modules which are pretty useless by themselves, and autonomous? how do you get them to work together? what happens when some of em break? (because some of them will break, if you have that many) if it wasn't so hard, the researchers probably wouldn't be so interested (I know I wouldn't) :)

    And then they want detachable segments!

    indeed. the new polybot can do it, and in fact demoed it at Comdex.

    the technology is facinating, as are the controls issues that accompany it. it's working incredibly well, I think.

    Lea

  • What makes these snakes better or worse than Mars Lander for smashing into nearby planets with?

    1. they can curl up into small spaces and make themself more resistant to high-G environments

    2. they can change configuration depending on terrain

    3. more robot per space/load becasue they can turn into someting much larger

    4. resistant to breaking down, since they're massively redundant

    for other reasons, take a look at my other post for the link to PARC's site.

    Lea

  • well, I'd have to say that for something made "quickly and easily" there was quite a lot of effort expended. it's a quite impressive piece of hardware, though if you look at the goals on the webpage you can see that no one thinks that this is going to be the last generation, with motors with giant gearboxes and such.

    there is a certain difference between coding and "real" engineering in the time for feedback. I write code. I compile. I fix bugs. I compile. I fix more bugs. I compile. that's /three/ generations in the space of 15 minutes (not keeping in mind that the easy availibility of compilers makes us a bit sloppier, since we know the compiler will catch mispellings, etc fast). hardware takes so much more time (even the version nasa's got takes time -- trust me, I glued a LOT of those kind together last summer) before you can even start debugging.

    also something that I think the article glossed over is that the basic architecture of these robots is reconfigurable. take a look at the polybot on the PARC page -- polybot is shown as a spider, a snake, and a rolling track, among other configurations. not only can it make these configurations, but it can change between them by itself, and (for example) standing up as a spider from completely flat on the floor takes a lot more power than a snake does.

    in any case, since you don't have your email up, feel free to continue this conversation by mailing me at chialea at nanorobotics.org

    Lea

  • I don't think it's supposed to burn anything.
    The passing gas is supposed to turn the turbine and therefore generate electricity which the snake could then use to move. I don't know what sort of flow rate you get in these pipes, but if it is high enough this should be feasable.
  • This sounds like a more advanced version of the Sky Worker [cmu.edu] project at the Field Robotics Center [cmu.edu] at Carnegie Mellon University. [cmu.edu] Although this project was origionally supposed to be for a robot to maintain orbiting solar cells, it seems to have involved to working on a robot to build, inspect, and maintain space facilities.
  • like so many futuristic visions, this cool concept would, in almost any conceivable implementation, be too costly to replace the standard methods of cabling.

    a thousand tiny robots = a thousand points of failure. even if these robots were able to cost $20 a peice, they would still be far far more expensive than a standard fiber optic drop and the labor to install it.
  • a thousand tiny robots = a thousand points of failure.

    Not really. In fact, if they're interchangeable, a thousand tiny robots = 999 replacements if one fails.
  • > The tiny snake, just 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) in
    > diameter, could be used to inspect gas lines
    > here on Earth as well. Marzwell said the snake
    > could use the pressure of the gas within the
    > pipeline to turn a tiny turbine to produce its
    > own electricity.

    Does anyone else here see the problem with sending an electrical generator into a gas line?

    --LordEq
  • >Robotic snakes are easier to maintain than space monkeys!

    Hey now, I resent that!
  • Think about it: You need three things for a gas explosion: gas, ignition source (sparks from the snake) and oxygen! There's no air in a gas line, therefor no 02, therefor no explosion.
  • Or we could use robotic ants like in an earlier story: http://slashdot.org/articles/99/10/11/0659214.shtm l

    They can pull cables like real ants! :)

  • Hmm that could be a problem [grin]. :)

  • cables but if they can made thin enough they could become cables themselves. You could have self assembling structures. And if they are modular they could be able to join with each other to become longer chains or break up into smaller sections to search or repair in parallel. Cool...the possibilities are endless.

    FarHat
  • I attended a talk by Mark Yim at Stanford around last November. As I recall, there were still many problems with his transforming robots (nifty as the idea was). The biggest problem seemed to be power issues: in the video clip we saw, the robots had tethered power supplies - the motors in the robots were too energy draining for (reasonably-sized) batteries to be used. Have these problems been solved yet?
  • Robotic snakes are easier to maintain than space monkeys! Not only will they not need to breathe (silly oxygene) but the eat mice! Logitech will be the sole feed provider for these marvelous creatures.

  • Since the big problem with looking for life on Europa is burrowing through 100km of ice, burrowing snakebots would be pretty cool, and they wouldn't require massive machinery.

    Problem: how to dig quickly enough to get through that much ice without running out of power.

  • As I recall, there were still many problems with his transforming robots (nifty as the idea was). The biggest problem seemed to be power issues...

    I don't see power as a problem in space: since the snake weighs nothing, it only has to act against its measly momentum (until the astronauts hold a snake race ;-). A simple latching mechanism, maybe with a spring to continuously exert force, would hold joints stiff for grasping. Solar cells, along with small batteries, would probably be sufficient. And if they're working in darkness, they can just use temporary mirrors.

    But I do see control as a problem. True robotics, especially in space, has a miserable track record. Even apparently simple things are actually very difficult, as Deep Space 1 pointing its camera in the wrong direction [nasa.gov] demonstrate. The snake will need to perform complex folding and grasping motions using a dozen joints. Designing that control system will be formidable. (The space shuttles' vaunted "robotic" arm is no more robotic than a bulldozer. It is a waldo (remote-controlled hand) driven by a human operator at a joystick.)

    If the snake is anything like the prototypes they showed, it will have lots of bearings. Vacuum welding will be a minor challenge, and thermal expansion could be a major concern. Many missions, such as Galileo, have been impaired or lost from solar arrays and antennas that were supposed to fold out, but instead jammed.

    And then they want detachable segments! That probably means electrical connectors (unless they put a radio transciever in each segment, which makes it a networking nightmare). On every design project I've ever been on, connectors have been the single largest pain in the ass (picking a microcontroller or transistor is easy compared to picking a connector). And not only is it a connector, it has to attach/detach (in vacuum) under the supervision of a robotic (read dumb) brain.

    I don't mean to put the snake projects down -- they just have so many compounded difficulties.

    There is one way the snake beats everything else hands down: redundancy, both of operations and repair. Most spacecraft can't keep several full sets of spare parts in a bucket! When you're 100 million miles from home, that might overshadow the other shortcomings.

  • I am waiting for that enchanting moment when artifficial snakes will be used as another form of recreational activity: -Oh, Al! -Your snake! It's slithering; now its sidewinding! -Peg, it was the best $150 I have ever spent, now I can actually get some sleep.
  • I wonder if they could be used to pull cable?
  • Am I the only one that sees the development of robotic snakes as one step closer to creating the first wave of robotic politicians?


    ...................

    ... paka chubaka

  • Similar things almost got to Mars (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 06, 2000 @10:05PM (#1087395)
    Ever heard of the Mars balloon?

    It was a big helium balloon which was supposed to move around Mars during daytime (with the help of winds) and during the nighttime it would go lower and stop.

    The snake-relation here is the device attached to the balloon. It was a snake look-a-like, formed of interconnected metal cones containing electronics and measurement gadgets inside. When they tested the balloon, they set it free in France and it ended up in the USA, to be picked up by a farmer when the balloon ended stuck on a tree.

    The snake was designed to be such that it wouldn't get stuck between rocks. In fact, the snake performed exceptionally well, slithering between rocks.

    What happened to the Mars balloon and the snake?

    Well, it didn't make it (the balloons were removed from the project), due to many reasons, one of them being the breakdown of Soviet Union and one being the failures of Mars probes. For instance, the Mars Observer carried the "Mars Balloon Relay [nasa.gov]" (MBR) and as we know, the MO disappeared 3 days before arriving on Mars. So no relays were deployed.

    More information [nasa.gov] about the balloon, and here [nasa.gov] about "aerobots".

    I couldn't find a link about the snake attached to the balloon, sorry.

  • Re:Mark Yim (Score:3)

    by chialea ( 8009 ) <chialea@BLUEgmail.com minus berry> on Saturday May 06, 2000 @03:57PM (#1087396) Homepage
    oh, there is some cool stuff in there. take a look at the Modular Reconfigurable Robotics [xerox.com] page at PARC for some other related projects.


    however, about making it cheaper, a lot of what is expensive is custom (and very complex) circuitboards, processors that are very hard to find, and stuff like that. very sweet hardware -- but it's not going to be cost effective right now, or at least until it's a little more developed.


    then again, Mark hasn't told me what I'm doing this summer (and I've been too occupied with finals to ask)


    Lea

  • Re:Silly mechanical engineers (Score:3)

    by Spasemunki ( 63473 ) on Saturday May 06, 2000 @04:21PM (#1087397) Homepage
    If you read through to the end of the article, they mentioned that the eventual hope is to replace the current system with something that uses a sort of electrical muscle substance. Some sort of thin, metal coated plastic that would deform in response to small electrical currents being placed through it, in much the same way as animal muscle works. Additional bonus over something that responds to PH is that your mechanical snake doesn't have a seizure if it wanders into some sort of natural acid/base deposit/

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday May 06, 2000 @03:34PM (#1087398)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Re:Here we go again... (Score:4)

    by rogerbo ( 74443 ) on Saturday May 06, 2000 @03:46PM (#1087399)
    No, this was not on Slashdot a year ago. Did you read the article on space.com?

    There was a previous article on snakebots but this article is new and goes into a lot more detail on proposed uses for the snakebots and the benefits of them.

    Think of it as an update, continuuity is good, slashdot should followup on interesting articles, like remember when we mentioned cool widget foobar? Well this is where it is now.

  • Mark Yim (Score:4)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Saturday May 06, 2000 @03:48PM (#1087400) Homepage
    That's Mark Yim's work. He does good stuff. Yim is just about the only guy to come out of Stanford robotics in the 1990s who actually built a complex mechanical device that worked. Even more impressive is that he got Xerox PARC to buy into the idea. PARC hasn't done robotics much, but they do have the ability to build precision machinery in house, since they make copier and printer prototypes.

    This general idea has been around for years; Gavin Miller [snakerobots.com] has been doing snake robots and snake animations since the 1980s. (Miller's a great guy, but he has this thing for snake locomotion.) Snakelike robot tentacles have been built and used, with modest success, as spray-painting robots.

    There's probably a cool toy in this. The technology needs to be redesigned by somebody like the guy who did the Furby to get the cost down, though.

  • Come on! (Score:5)

    by Jonathan ( 5011 ) on Saturday May 06, 2000 @04:08PM (#1087401) Homepage
    Don't these people ever match movies? You create some sort of icky technological horrors like robotic snakes and deploy them in an isolated location like a space station or martian colony and they will certainly go berserk, killing all but the most charismatic male and his love interest. These two characters of course defeat the evil technology just in time to catch the last spaceship back to earth.
  • this robot is actually a copy of the Polybot built at Xerox-PARC (under a DoD contract, though). there's actually a whole bunch of people under Dr. Mark Yim (though his litte page on the PARC site seems to be doing bad things right now) who work on this in the Modular Reconfigurable Robotics [xerox.com] project. they were at the last Comdex with the (more advanced than the model NASA's using) robot that's pictured at the top of their page.

    there are also a lot of related projects, such as Proteo and Digital Clay that are also very interesting stuff.

    disclaimer: I currently work on this project at PARC (well, when I'm not in school), and I used to work for that group at NASA (for a summer).

    Lea

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