Technology Blog

The Robotic Tentacle Manipulator T'Jae Gibson Snake-like robots are nothing new -- for instance, Virginia Tech has developed some pretty amazing pole-climbing snakebots, and the Israeli military has a weaponized recon 'bot in the works -- but the U.S. Army Research Lab is taking military snakebots to a new level. Its Robotic Tentacle Manipulator is using snakebot tech to develop a scalable system in which several robots work in unison to manipulate objects. Like many of its counterparts, the individual RTM snake can slither into tight spaces, climb impassible obstacles, or swim where soldiers cannot, all the while beaming back images to the soldier controlling it by remote. Each snake is equipped with a sensor array, not least of which is a LIDAR scanner that lets it render 3-D depictions of objects, landscapes, or faces. But the snakes also work in groups, acting more like fingers or the tentacles of an octopus. Arranging several of them on a circular base creates an array that can gingerly pick u