Another cool robot from Japan. This time, it’s a huge snake robot, made by the Hirose-Fukushima Lab at Tokyo Institute of Technology. The researchers say it’s not a fun project but that they aim at finding out how snakes can move forward without legs (?) and how a snake-shaped robot could be used for practical applications.

As you can see in the video embedded below, the ACM-R5 moves like a real-life snake – even in water. Each joint comes with its own CPU, motor and battery to make sure they can work independently.

The robot was first shown back in 2005. Here’s a video Tokyo-based DigInfoNews shot of the newest version just a few days ago: