The good folks at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute are developing autonomous snake-like robots that can navigate more naturally and easily through rubble and other debris left in the aftermath of a disaster. A robot like this would be amazing and would probably save many lives after an earthquake. Awesome technology if it works as designed. Please don’t put it on a plane.



“The goal of this project is to have a snake-like robot with the autonomy to navigate through its environment without close supervision,” said Jie Fu, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and the co-principal investigator on the project. “In search-and-rescue scenarios, you’d want a robot you can rely on to go into areas inaccessible by humans and provide critical information about conditions there and about who needs to be rescued first.”

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Source: [H]ardOCP – Autonomous Snake-Like Robots to Support Search-and-Rescue Teams