Serpentine Robot crawls slithers and glides

over rugged terrains and is called the OmniTread Serpentine Robot, which was developed by engineering students at the University of Michigan.

Its body consists of seven segments connected by pneumatic bellows. Treads on all four sides of the segments give it traction against surfaces, and the connecting bellows can inflate or deflate to provide stiffness or flexibility as needed. The robot can squeeze through a four-inch hole and amazingly ascend a vertical tube

The OmniTread serpentine robot is designed to traverse extremely difficult terrain, such as the rubble of a collapsed building and can also drive over sand and rocks and climb over tall obstacles.