Active Hose: an Artificial Elephant's Nose with Maneuverability for Rescue Operation

This paper proposes both the design concept and the driving mechanism of a flexible robot with multiple degrees of freedom to dive into debris. Up to now, several kinds pneumatic robots with flexibility have been developed, however, they couldn’t perform multiple degrees of freedom with high bending moment. Then a new type of robot, called “Active Hose,” is proposed here, which has multiple degrees of freedom by connecting units of two degrees freedom in series and has high bending moment by introducing the spine structure and using the deformation of the spiral tubes. “Active Hose” with these performance can be expected to apply to rescue operation such as searching the victims under debris just after the earthquake, supplying fresh air and drinking water for victims, and carrying the air jacks so as to make a room for the victims to go out.