Biological snakes have a simple form like a string, but they live in any environment. If we could realize a robotic snake it could go any environment to investigate the inside of the structure.
We have realized a three-dimensional snake robot that can achieve multiple locomotion modes; especially, helicoidal rolling locomotion is utilized to investigate the inside of a pipe. Currently, we are studying algorithms that automatically generate body movements based on sensor information such as tactile sensations obtained by robots, to realize snake-like robots that can move in more complex environments.