What do a snake and a rescue worker have in common?

At first the snake and a rescue worker do not seem to have anything at all in common, but if you consider an interesting science project at the Georgia Institute of Technology you see how the reptile could inspire the building of a robotic rescue worker.

A group of mechanical engineers at the university have been studying the locomotion of a snake so as to produce it in a robot. The kind of robot that they have in mind will be better than a human rescue worker as it will be able to cling to a surface like the side of a wall.

What’s more the robot will also be fitted with equipment which allows it to find victims buried in rubble in the rescue operation with ease. The design is great in theory but the practical construction of this reptile inspired robotic rescue worker has been giving the research team some tough times.

The texture of the snake and the ground it moves on is what they are trying to replicate in what they termed the “Snakebot.” While the science project is no where near complete the research done so far does not make the finished product seem very unrealistic.