Snake-like robots are robots that have elongated, snake-like bodies. Because of their long, thin shapes, snakelike robots are expected to play different roles from those of other types of robots. For example, they may be used to inspect pipes or search for victims at disaster sites. Many studies that focus on biomimetics, mechanisms, modeling, analyzing, control, navigation, sensing, and localization have been conducted on snakelike robots, and there have been many efforts aimed at their industrialization.
This special issue calls for a wide range of research and development results from the field of robotics and mechatronics for snake-like robots and similar elongated, hyper-redundant robots, such as earthworm robots, caterpillar robots, or other articulated mobile robots.