One of the things I am often glad of is that snakes can’t fly. I can’t think of anything worse than being chased by a flying snake set on biting me with its gross forked tongue and fangs. This snake-like flying DRAGON robot from the University of Tokyo looks set to fly right into my bad dreams.
The squiggly bot can change its shape to suit the obstacle it needs to transverse. It is a prototype made of linked sections each with their own pair of ducted fan motors to help it morph and fly through challenging obstacles like holes in a wall. Of course you could accomplish the same with a mich smaller and simpler drone, but where would the fun be in that?
DRAGON can fly in the formation of an L, a straight line, a square, a zig-zag depending on its needs. When it gets to its goal, it can’t shoot water or anything to put out fires like the water shooting snake bot, but it could scare the crap out of a hapless bro stuck in a building or cave.
[via iEEE Spectrum]
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