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From: rdt143e@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au (dr  s    hill)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Re: locomotion: crawling?
Keywords: locomotion, legless
Message-ID: <1990Jul5.222857.11237@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au>
Date: 5 Jul 90 22:28:57 GMT
References: <7482@gollum.twg.com>
Organization: Chisholm Institute of Technology, Melb., Australia
Lines: 17

cauhape@twg.com (Jeff P. Cauhape) writes:

>A layman asks:

>Does anyone know if snake-like locomotion has been seriously
>considered for robotic locomotion? If so, can you point me
>to references?

Prof. Yoji Umetani's group at Physical Engineering,
Tokyo Institute of Technology has been working on snake-like locomotion
since, at least, 1981.
I can't locate any references here in my office, but Umetani
showed a video of his work when he visited us in 1981.
Then the machines were multi-segmented snakes, each segment had
four wheels. The wheels were not powered, the snake-like
oscillations provided the motive power to move the machine forward.
The machine was tethered to it's power supply and computing system.