Developing A Fully Soft Robotic Snake For Search And Rescue

Abstract

In a disastrous environment, the normal way for a victim to be rescued is by first responders orsearch and rescue operators to look for victims, by placing themselves in dangerous situations and riskingtheir lives to search for trapped victims. There have been times where having a robot would be morebeneficial to the search and rescue operators as they are replaceable but more importantly because rescuerswould not need to go into dangerous situations and risk their lives saving other people. Hard robots havebeen used in certain scenarios and have proved their usefulness in these situations. But they come with adownside which is they tend to damage easily and cannot fit into tight or small spaces unless specificallydesigned to. Soft robots tend to solve this problem since by being made from soft materials they tend toabsorb impacts better than hard bodied robots. Therefore, a soft robotic snake design was proposed to bemade to be used in scenarios such as search and rescue operations. The proposed system can be remotelyaccessed and has video feedback capabilities. The main body of the robot was fabricated out of silicone andshows an accuracy of 70 percent in repeating its motion on a controlled surface after moving across differentterrains and has a top speed of 6cm/min through inching motion.