Firefighting Robot Snake Flies on Jets of Water | Robotics

Fires have an unfortunate habit of happening in places that aren’t necessarily easy to reach. Whether the source of the fire is somewhere deep within a building, or up more than a floor or two, or both, firefighters have few good options for tackling them. They can either pour water into windows (which doesn’t always work that well), or they can try and get into the building, which seems like it’s probably super dangerous.

At the International Conference on Robotics and Automation last month, researchers from Tohoku University and National Institute of Technology, Hachinohe College, in Japan, presented a new kind of snake-like robot with the body of a fire hose. Like other snake robots, this one has the potential to be able to wiggle its way into windows or other gaps in a structure, with the benefit of carrying and directing water as it goes. What’s so cool about this particular design, though, is how it powers itself: By firing high pressure jets of water downwards like rocket engines, it can lift itself off of the ground and fly.