Snake robot

Hirose, S. Biologically Inspired Robots Snake-like Locomotors and Manipulators. Oxford University Press, Oxford (1993)... 

IPMCs are attractive aetuators for biomimetie robots due to flie softness and the abiUty to use in water. Fish robots, snake robots, and walking robots based on the IPMC aetuators have been demonstrated. As well as mimicking functions of Uving animals, the future direetion of the researehes on biomimetic robot are expeeted to reveal the energy-effieient motions of living animals. 

Kamamichi, N., Yamakita, M., Asaka, K. and Luo, Z.-W. (2006). A snake-like swimming robot using IPMC Actuator//Sensor, in Proc. of IEEE Conference on Robotics and Automation (Orlando, Florida), pp. 1812-1817. 

N. Simaan, "Snake-like units using flexible backbones and actuation redundancy for enhanced miniaturization," IEEE Inti. Conf Robotics Automation, Spain, pp. 3012-3017, 2005. 

Other novel arrangements for robotic systems have been developed some examples include self-assembling robotic systems, snake and concentric tube robots, magnetically actuated manipulators, and "microrobots," Concentric tube robots allow increased surgical access without increasing invasiveness by utilizing precurved concentric tubes the... 

Webster, R. J., Okamura, A. M., and Cowan, N. J. "Toward active cannulas Miniature snake-like surgical robots." 2006 lEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. IEEE, 2006. 

Figure 5.16 Center for Image-Guided Innovation and Therapeutic Intervention 2.2-mm snake-like robotic tool.

Simaan N, Taylor R, Flint P. High dexterity snake-hke robotic slaves for minimally invasive telesurgery of the upper airway. In Medical image computing and computer-assisted intervention—MICCAI 2004. Springer 2004. p. 17-24. 

Snake-like robot (Nakabo et al., 2007(14]) Figure 6.1 Various applications of IPMC actuators. 

Nakabo et al. [14] developed a snake-like swimming robot with a patterned-electrode IPMC. The aim is that a snake-like motion sweeps a smaller area than simple bending swimming. Thus, it is suitable for future swimming robots in thin tubes, such as blood vessels, as shown in Figure 6.16. 

Figure 6.16 Concept of a snake-like swimming robot in a thin tube (Reprinted with permission from Nakcibo, Y. et al. Biomimetic soft robots using IPMC in Electroactive Polymers for Robotic Applications (eds Kim, K. J. and Tadokoro, S.), 165-98. Copyright (2007) Springer).

Phenomenon of Growing Wave of a Swimming Snake Robot Do Living... 

The second section in this chapter briefly reviews biomimetic robots using IPMC actuators. Fishlike robots are reviewed firstly. In the experiment of a snake robot, the wave motion grows from the head to the tail even without feedback control. This interesting phenomenon may support a hypothesis that living animals utilize the... 

Shahinpoor et al. showed an idea of flapping flying machine (Shahinpoor et al. 1998). Arena et al. proposed a wormlike robot (Arena et al. 2006). As a robot similar to the snake robots, however, mueh smaller, Sareh et al. proposed artiflcial cilia (Sareh et al. 2012). 

This section also intioduced a notable phenomenon of growing wave of a snake robot. The hving animals may utilize the elasticity of their bodies and muscles, as the phenomenon observed in the robot. As well as mimicking functions of living animals, the future direction of the researches on biomimetic robot are expected to reveal the energy-efficient motions of living animals. 

Within the field of robotics, different natural manipulators such as elephant trunks, octopus arms, squid tentacles and snakes have been considered as models for the development of high-performance (means of locomotion or grasping) robotic devices. 

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