The Israeli Defense Forces have released photos and video of a snakelike surveillance robot it is developing to help investigate buildings, caves, tunnels and other hard-to-reach areas, according to a report in the Jerusalem Post.
The two-meter-long snake, covered in desert camouflage, carries a video camera on its front, which broadcasts the video back to its controller, who uses a laptop and encrypted wireless links to control the remote-slithering vehicle.
The snake, developed by the Defense Ministry with help from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, based the snake on a similar project that was part of a Ben-Gurion University project to build robots that mimic the motions of live animals. Last year the university announced its researchers had developed a “snake” able to navigate through pipes using realistic snake-like locomotive movements.
The IDF version, which is still in prototype and has not yet been manufactured for field use, is designed primarily as an observation platform, but can also carry explosives that can be detonated remotely by the operator.