The JPL Serpentine Robot: a 12-DOF system for inspection

The Serpentine Robot is a prototype hyper-redundant (snake-like) manipulator system developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It is designed to navigate and perform tasks in obstructed and constrained environments in which conventional 6-DOF manipulators cannot similarly function. This paper describes the Serpentine Robot mechanical design, a low level inverse kinematic algorithm for the joint assembly, a brief synopsis of control development to date, and the applications of this technology.