OmniTread Rescue Robot Revealed

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The great young minds at the University of Michigan have unveiled the OmniTrack series of robots. The two robots, the OT-4 and OT-8 are snake-like rescue robots are that designed to crawl through rubble and rough terrain to search for injured people. Each of it’s “segments” is covered with treads on all four sides, letting it crawl in some unique ways.

It is a bit slow (the YouTube video is sped up x4 speed – and it’s still slow), and the two prototypes are powered by AC power adapters, but according to the University, they’ve gotten one to run for 75 hours on battery life. Ideally, it would have some sort of remote camera attached to the front of it. Despite being sloooow, it can move in some remarkable ways, and can move through some pretty big gaps.

So far, it’s just two proof-of-concept prototype bots with no plans for production or commercial backing – although that may change. The US government loves spending money on public safety (fire trucks, police cars, etc.), so if the University of Michigan sells the patent to somebody who can manufacturer these things, we might see one in every earthquake-troubled city in the US. Check out the YouTube clip.