DISADVANTAGES OF SERPENTINE ROBOTS
Payload: Much locomotion has to do with work; the transport of materials from one place to another. There is no integral platform for attaching payloads.
• Degrees of Freedom: To subtend the various curves needed for locomotion requires a larger number of actuators than most wheeled or legged vehicles. The number of DOFs in vehicles can range from two up to eighteen and even more for some walkers. A large number of DOFs may introduce reliability problems; numbers of units have a higher chance of having any unit fail.
APPLICATIONS
Exploration: In unpredictable environments, there are zones of uncertainty and footing is insecure or unknown. A snake-like device can distribute its mass over a large area for support so that even if footing gives way, self-support between secure points enables continued operation. Such environments include planetary surfaces and extreme terrains with loose rubble and inclines near the slope of repose.
Inspection: Many inspection techniques in industry and medicine rely on fixed-base mechanisms such as borescopes, videoscopes and fiberscopes. These devices are primarily used to inspect cavities that cannot be seen directly by the eye. Inspection applications include airline engine maintenance, quality control in manufacturing, and process monitoring and inspection in utilities and chemical plants. Simple direct-view borescopes have proven useful, but articulated self-advancing devices forming and following complex paths could open many more applications.
Medical: Snake-like devices have received attention as a potential medical technology. Minimally-invasive surgery reduces or eliminates the need to cut open large sections of skin and tissue. It is currently estimated that 35% of the 21,000,000 surgeries performed each year could be done with minimally invasive techniques]. There could be dramatic reductions in hospital stays, patient suffering, and costs. Laparoscopic devices, which are rigid tools inserted into the abdominal wall, and Endoscopic devices are used in these types of surgical procedures..
Hazardous Environments: Human activity is precluded in many areas where there are extremes of radiation, temperature, chemical toxicity, pressure or structural weakness. However, it is often necessary to explore and survey these areas to insure safety and ascertain status. A variety of small tracked or wheeled machines have been constructed for such applications, but these have limitations in their ability to traverse and maneuver through hazardous terrain.
A serpentine mechanism could fare better due to the advantages cited earlier. Other dangerous areas include those following disasters such as earthquakes, Explosions, cave-ins, hurricanes, fires etcetera. The search for survivors and removal of material is often thwarted by loose rubble that might be penetrable by a snake. Outfitted with sensors such as ammonia or pyroelectric IR detectors, a snake-like mechanism would enable sensing of humans in rubble. These are applications that would eliminate life-endangering alternatives such as using heavy construction equipment to move loose material from accident sites.
• Routing: Much effort in the wiring of existing structures requires routing of cables and lines through narrow passages behind existing walls and through pipes. A variety of manual tools for feeding the lines, such as fish tapes (metal bands) While some specialized devices have been designed for wire and cable routing they are not used in practice.
CONCLUSION
The article has attempted to present the correlation between the biological aspects of a snake and show its influence on design of serpentine robots. It has the dynamic and kinematic analysis of I specific type of serpentine robot. The basic purpose of the article was to introduce a new and upcoming subsection of hyper redundant robots which are finding various uses in all fields. The future of snake robots with the amount of research and development being dine is very bright. The article is trying to enlist the various types of snake robots emerging and the innumerable ways of achieving redundancy
