How Can a Snake‑Like Robot Save Lives During Hemorrhage?

Imagine a robot that slithers like a snake, weaving through rubble and pinpointing in seconds who needs urgent care for severe blood loss. This is the new design presented in *Applied Sciences*. The robot merges active wheels with orthogonal joints: wheels give speed, joints let it twist like a serpent to squeeze through tight gaps, climb steep slopes and dodge obstacles. Its “head” carries a visible‑light camera, an infrared sensor and a voice‑interaction system, so it can snap pictures, detect body heat and listen to victims, gathering crucial data to identify hemorrhagic shock. Researchers tested the robot in Webots simulations and real‑world trials, measuring walking speed, minimum hole size, climbing angle, obstacle height, step size, ditch width and turning radius. Results show the robot is fast, agile and able to collect useful images and audio for rapid triage. In disaster scenarios with many casualties, this technology could cut response times, offset staff shortages and boost survival chances for those in hemorrhagic shock.

The snake‑like robot employs a modular architecture with 2‑DOF (degrees of freedom) joints to enable XY plane movements and rotations around the vertical axis. The active wheels are equipped with brushless motors controlled by an A* path‑planning algorithm optimized for dynamic environments. The infrared thermal sensor operates in the 8‑14 µm band, offering a thermal resolution of 0.1 °C, allowing discrimination between healthy tissue and hypoperfused areas typical of shock. The noise‑cancelling microphone, integrated with a convolutional neural network‑based speech recognizer, extracts keywords such as “pain” or “help”. Collected data are transmitted via Wi‑Fi 6 to a command station, where a machine‑learning algorithm classifies patients based on estimated physiological parameters (skin temperature, voice tone, movement). Webots simulations validated the robot’s ability to pass 15 cm openings, climb slopes up to 30°, and overcome 20 cm obstacles while maintaining an average speed of 0.8 m/s. These performance metrics surpass traditional wheeled robots, which struggle in tight spaces and uneven terrain, making the serpentine design especially suited for urban disaster search‑and‑rescue missions.