The OmniTread OT-4 serpentine robot

Serpentine robots are slender, multi-segmented vehicles designed to provide greater mobility than conventional mobile robots. Serpentine robots are ideally suited for urban search and rescue, military intelligence gathering, and for inspection tasks in hazardous or inaccessible environments. One such serpentine robot, developed at the University of Michigan, is the “OmniTread OT-4.” The OT-4 comprises seven segments, which are linked to each other by six joints. The OT-4 can climb over obstacles that are much higher than the robot itself, propel itself inside pipes of different diameters, and traverse difficult terrain, such as rocks or the rubble of a collapsed structure. The foremost and unique design characteristic of the OT-4 is the use of pneumatic bellows to actuate the joints. The pneumatic bellows allow the simultaneous control of position and stiffness for each joint is important in serpentine robots, which require stiff joints to cross gaps and compliant joints to confor...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: ICRA
• Authors: Johann Borenstein, Adam Borrell
• Keywords: Conventional Mobile Robots, ICRA 2008, Pneumatic Bellows, Robotics, Serpentine Robots