Elongate limbless robots have the potential to locomote through tightly packed spaces for applications such as search-and-rescue and industrial inspections. The capability to effectively and robustly maneuver elongate limbless robots is crucial to realize such potential. However, there has been limited research on turning strategies for such systems. To achieve effective and robust turning performance in cluttered spaces, we take inspiration from a microscopic nematode, C. elegans, which exhibits remarkable maneuverability in rheologically complex environments partially because of its ability to perform omega turns. Despite recent efforts to analyze omega turn kinematics, it remains unknown if there exists a wave equation sufficient to prescribe an omega turn, let alone its reconstruction on robot platforms. Here, using a comparative theory-biology approach, we prescribe the omega turn as a superposition of two traveling waves. With wave equations as a guideline, we design a controller for limbless robots enabling robust and effective turning behaviors in lab and cluttered field environments. Finally, we show that such omega turn controllers can also generalize to elongate multi-legged robots, demonstrating an alternative effective body-driven turning strategy for elongate robots, with and without limbs.

Discrete and periodic contact switching is a key characteristic of steady-state legged locomotion. This paper introduces a framework for modeling and analyzing this contact-switching behavior through the framework of geometric mechanics on a toy robot model that can make continuous limb swings and discrete contact switches. The kinematics of this model form a hybrid shape-space and by extending the generalized Stokes' theorem to compute discrete curvature functions called \textit{stratified panels}, we determine average locomotion generated by gaits spanning multiple contact modes. Using this tool, we also demonstrate the ability to optimize gaits based on the system's locomotion constraints and perform gait reduction on a complex gait spanning multiple contact modes to highlight the method's scalability to multilegged systems.

Snakes and their bio-inspired robot counterparts have demonstrated locomotion on a wide range of terrains. However, dynamic vertical climbing is one locomotion strategy that has received little attention in the existing snake robotics literature. We demonstrate a new scansorial gait and robot inspired by the locomotion of the Pacific Lamprey. This new gait allows a robot to steer while climbing on flat, near-vertical surfaces. A reduced-order model is developed and used to explore the relationship between body actuation and vertical and lateral motions of the robot. Trident, the new wall climbing lamprey-inspired robot, demonstrates dynamic climbing on flat vertical surfaces with a peak net vertical stride displacement of 4.1 cm per step. Actuating at 1.3 Hz, Trident attains a vertical climbing speed of 4.8 cm/s (0.09 Bl/s) at specific resistance of 8.3. Trident can also traverse laterally at 9 cm/s (0.17 Bl/s). Moreover, Trident is able to make 14\% longer strides than the Pacific Lamprey when climbing vertically. The computational and experimental results demonstrate that a lamprey-inspired climbing gait coupled with appropriate attachment is a useful climbing strategy for snake robots climbing near vertical surfaces with limited push points.

Howie Choset is a Professor of Robotics where he serves as the co-director, along with Matt Travers, of the Biorobotics Lab. Choset's research program has made contributions to strategically significant problems in surgery, manufacturing, on-orbit maintenance, recycling and search and rescue. His work is most famous for its snake robots and other biologically inspired systems and recently his group has been contributing to robotic modularity, multi-agent planning, information-based search, and skill learning. Currently, Choset's projects include: medical support in the field, expeditionary robotics, on-orbit maintenance and construction of structures in space, rapidly carrying heavy objects up several flights of stairs, recycling of E-waste, food preparation, "edge"-sensing, and aerospace painting. Choset has led multi-PI projects centered on manufacturing: (1) automating the programming of robots for auto-body painting; (2) the development of mobile manipulators for agile and flexible fixture-free manufacturing of large structures in aerospace, and (3) the creation of a data-robot ecosystem for rapid manufacturing in the commercial electronics industry.

When sea snakes swim, they wind their way through the water by flicking their flattened tails, which is super graceful but requires a whole lot of coordination. So when roboticists at Carnegie Mellon University decided that it was time for their landlubbing robot snake to take to the water, they took a shortcut. They approximated the wildly complex biomechanics of a serpent--and then loaded the machine with propellers. The result is a sort of wiggling torpedo, sans warhead: the Hardened Underwater Modular Robot Snake. As you can see in the video below, it manages some impressive swimming by combining an aft thruster to produce forward movement with lateral thrusters along its body for stability control, plus it uses some bending joints (actuators, in the parlance) to position the lateral thrusters.

"Robotics technology is rapidly moving out of the lab and into the real world." As society looks for ways to reduce human exposure to novel coronavirus, digital technology has emerged front stage center. Computers, smartphones, videoconferencing tools and cloud-based services have curtailed the need for people to congregate, and risk becoming sick or dying. Yet, for many tasks -- tending to patients in hospitals, managing grocery stores, delivering food -- social distancing is not an option. Human workers can't escape the risk of being exposed to COVID-19.

A few days after a 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck Mexico City last month, Carnegie Mellon University roboticists were contacted to see if their snake robots could help with search-and-rescue efforts. Mexican rescuers were still trying find people in the rubble of collapsed buildings, and even though several days had passed, they thought it'd be worth trying to bring in the snakebots. Within 24 hours, a team of CMU roboticists had packed their gear and headed out to the disaster site. We spoke with Matt Travers, who was on the ground in Mexico City operating the robots, along with Howie Choset, who heads CMU's Biorobotics Lab where the snake robots are developed, about their experience with using robots in a real disaster and how, although no survivors were found during the rescue missions they assisted with, they learned an enormous amount being on-site. IEEE Spectrum: Were you and your robots ready for a real disaster? Howie Choset: Since the beginning of my adventure into snake robots, I've been interested in search and rescue.

Robots are secretly plotting to kill us. Or, at best, they will take our jobs, one by one. From science fiction written by Isaac Asimov eight decades ago to "Dilbert" cartoons today, the relationship between robots and humans has long fascinated--and worried--people. And there are concerns beyond the ones stoked by watching too much "Terminator ." Apple computer pioneer Steve Wozniak once suggested that robots would turn us into their pets .

The biblical narrative of the Garden of Eden describes how the snake became the most cursed of all beasts: "you shall walk on your belly, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life." The reptile's eternal punishment is no longer feared but embraced for its versatility and flexibility. The snake is fast approaching as one of the most celebrated robotic creatures for roboticists worldwide in out maneuvering rovers and humanoids. Last week, while General Electric experienced a tumult in its management structure, its Aviation unit completed the acquisition of OC Robotics – a leader in serpent arm design. GE stated that it believes OC's robots will be useful for jet engine maintenance, enabling repairs to be conducted while the engine is still attached to the wing by wiggling into parts where no human hand could survive.

The first 30 minutes after a battlefield injury are dire: that's when nearly 86 percent of battlefield deaths occur. Before attending to the wounded, frontline physicians have to quickly locate the casualty and extract him from the battlefield, often under heavy fire. This can take up costly minutes, as well as expose medics themselves as possible targets. Now researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) are developing technology to give battlefield medics a helping hand–literally. Howie Choset, an associate professor of robotics at CMU, has engineered a snakelike robotic arm equipped with various sensors that can monitor a soldier's condition.