Snake robots are also being developed for search and rescue purposes at Carnegie Mellon University's Biorobotics Lab. [ citation needed] See also [ edit ]

To explore the proposed 3D soft robotic snake's ability to operate on nonplanar environments, we developed a custom locomotion sequence based on the climbing motion of real snakes, which allows our robot to climb up a step (as shown in Supplementary Video S1). At least three modules are needed on the ground for the robot to perform snake-like lateral undulation locomotion and power the robot to move forward. The step climbing motion will result in intermediate states with several modules that cannot touch the ground when climbing up high steps due to the restriction of the module length. Thus, to gain higher thrust and better balance, we added one more module to the robot, and created this gait for a 5-module version of the robotic snake, without loss of generality. As a result, this version offers greater balance for some of the modules to be lifted off the ground.We found that, practically it is beneficial to keep the input pressure and gait frequency constant during locomotion, and thus, the distance from the Centroid trajectory to the left and right boundaries of the adaptive bounding box is a function of the steering offset in the gait algorithm. We used a similar setup as the instructable example for our photocell sensors. When getting one sensor, it is exactly the same. Just make sure the analog pins are placed in pins 2-5, as the motors will be using 0 and 1 (even though they are not plugged into them). We have used analog pins 3, 4, and 5. Where 3 and 4 are the directional sensors and 5 is the ambient sensor.

Luo M, Wan Z, Sun Y, et al. Motion planning and iterative learning control of a modular soft robotic snake. Front Robot AI 2020;7:191. Crossref , Google Scholar

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The first modular pressure-operated soft robotic snake with independent modules that integrate sensing, control, communication, and actuation subsystems.

Again, the code is similar to the photocell instructable. We create photocellReading variables to store the analog readings from the pins and then start the main loop. We will set the variable to the analog reading and print it out to see if it is working. We pause for 1 second, or else the reading will print out so fast we will be unable to read them.The vibration motor will need to be as long as the snake itself so it will be able to rattle the tail.

We then subtract photocellDifference1 and photocellDifference2 from each other and store it in lrValue. By taking this difference, we are able to tell how much more light each directional sensor is sensing. If this number is negative than it means Sensor 4 has less light than Sensor 3 and more speed should be directed at Motor B. If the lrValue is positive than it means that Sensor 3 has more light than Sensor 4 and more speed should be directed to Motor A. Past winners have occasionally gone on to further develop their concepts, and a couple of those are even being considered for integration into upcoming NASA missions. Other times, projects languish after team members graduate. According to Kevin Kempton of NASA’s Game Changing Development Program, one of the competition’s lead judges, it depends on the motivation of team members. “I try to tell the teams, the next step is to look for announcements of opportunity,” Kempton says. “NASA is always looking for low-cost payloads.” myServos[2*j+1].write(90+offset+amplitude*sin(Speed*rads+j*Wavelengths*shift-(Multiplier-1)*pi/4)); Again, in this step, we found it was easiest to draw out what we wanted timing wise, so we could easily see when to turn on and off each component. We demonstrate and verify different locomotion gaits and methods with the 3D soft robotic snake prototype, includingOur previous work presented a pneumatic soft robotic snake, 13 which can conduct planar continuum lateral undulatory locomotion. Similar to other soft robots, 14–16 our soft-bodied snake robot results in much more flexible, adaptive, and safe motion, emphasizing its potential as a search-and-rescue robot. Pioneering works 17 demonstrated a three-chamber structure pneumatic actuator able to bend in three dimensions. With similar structure, we design and fabricate a 3D soft robotic snake. To create anisotropic friction, which is necessary in serpentine locomotion, we utilize passive wheels. Godage's research group 18 designed a soft robotic snake without passive wheels, and fulfill the propulsion by inward and outward rolling locomotion. However, the velocity is limited, and the system require a considerable number of tethering tubes for pressure input. Another research work 19 utilizes kirigami pattern to create a novel “snake skin,” able to create anisotropic friction for snake-like robot.