A robot snake to inspect broken buildings

Abstract

We build a snake-like robot for the inspection of areas that are difficult or dangerous to be accessed by human. Pictures from a camera at the robot's head are sent to a remote screen and can be monitored by a human operator. This human operator can also control the robot's motion, but not every single body part. Thus the operator only gives general directives and the robot will then able to follow autonomously the given directives. This is the semi-autonomous behavior of the robot. However, the robot must also be able to act fully autonomous when the contact to the operator is lost. After a short description of the robot we present a method which makes the operator control easy and also allows the robot to act fully autonomous. The autonomous motion control of the robot moving in a sewer pipe has been implemented.