In the past few years, we have covered a bunch of snake robots that can go through narrow spaces and complete search and rescue and other challenging missions. Tatsuya Takemori, Motoyasu Tanaka, and Fumitoshi Matsuno from Kyoto University and University of Electro-Communications, Japan have developed a snake robot with a smooth exterior body surface that can climb ladders.
The robot has 36 joints with links that weigh 150g each. As the above video shows, the robot changes its body shape to climb ladders.
[HT]