Smart Snake Reconnaissance System
Lead Research Organisation:
CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY
Department Name: Sch of Aerospace, Transport & Manufact
Abstract
This project aims to develop a smart snake reconnaissance system (SASAR). SASAR has many potential and irreplaceable applications, including military reconnaissance, counter-terrorism (terrorist shelter access) and security, small or risk space access (aircraft wing, dangerous caves), search and rescue of lives from earthquaked ruins. The challenging research activities cover several aspects: elastic and plastic SASAR structures, faster and efficient crawling mechanisms on tough terrains and in crashed environment, locomotion guidance and control, target search and obstacle avoidance, and telemetry/telecommand. The expected results are two SASAR prototypes with two different crawling mechanisms. Furthermore, research results are expected to extend to various SASAR scales for other civil, public and commercial applications.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Huamin Jia (Primary Supervisor) | |
| Samuel Parfitt (Student) |
Studentship Projects
| Project Reference | Relationship | Related To | Start | End | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EP/P510464/1 | 01/10/2016 | 30/09/2021 | |||
| 1944032 | Studentship | EP/P510464/1 | 04/09/2017 | 03/09/2021 | Samuel Parfitt |
| Description | SASAR stands for the Smart Snake Reconnaissance System. The purpose of this project is to design and build a small, modular, snake-like, semi-autonomous robot for use in the maintenance of large vehicles, though the technology could be easily transferred to other uses. The shape and gait of snakes makes them unique in there versatility and talent for manoeuvring through tight unstructured voids which a typical drone would struggle with. The concept use-case is for a maintenance technician to deploy SASAR at the opening to space which needs to be inspected. The technician operates the robot with a simple controller, using a video stream from the front of the snake to guide its movement. The semi-autonomous nature of the robot with be able to detect obstacles in its path, such as steps to be climbed or gaps to be bridged, and will automatically adjust it's movement to overcome the obstacle without the need of any additional input from the operator. The design of the robot consists of a chain of a number of different types of 'module'. The main body of the snake is made of 'joint' modules which provide the mechanical power and flexibility of the robot, producing movement. At the front of the robot is a 'head' module which will feature a range of sensors and a camera to feed back to the operator, and a 'tail' module which connects the robot to the controller via a tether cable. The modularity of the system is one of it's unique features. Each module will share a common interface meaning in the future more modules can be designed if a specific tool or payload is required. Thus far the project has focused of the design of an initial concept robot, SASAR 1, and creating the algorithms and control systems required to model the movement of the robot in a snake-like manner. Currently, a new concept design is underway, looking into interesting new mechanisms which will give the robot the manoeuvrability it requires in the smallest package possible. |
| Exploitation Route | Ideally, the final prototype design and accompanying control system will be able to be used for countless purposes. As stated above, the modularity of the design means this technology could be turned and used for many, vastly different tasks, specifically in the cases where human interaction with the target or location is not possible. It would be very possible to make SASAR able to swim with the addition of a module adding control fins or propellers, for example. |
| Sectors | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Construction,Electronics,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology |