Robot Snake Firehose

The Scandanavian research group SINTEF (The Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research at the Norwegian Institute of Technology) has come up with robot to help in disaster rescue and firefighting, a robot firehose.

The snake robot has 20 sections with hydraulic motors and valves. It is about ten feet long and weighs 70kg. It slithers like a snake and, with operating pressure of 100 bars, it can lift a car or bust through a concrete wall. The snake, sometimes called Anna Konda, can be fitted with options to take a look into inaccessable disaster or dowse a fire with water.


It is simple to operate. Pål Liljebäck of SINTEF says, "A camera in the snake’s head makes operating the snake like driving a remote-controlled car. The operator can tell the snake to move from A to B, and the snake works out on its own how to accomplish this. It knows how to cross a pile of materials, climb down on the back side and twist itself round objects in order to get footing.”

The design team also plans to try the robot underwater for maintenance on offshore oil and gas wells.

via The Engineer Online

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