Call me a pessimist but I look at that thing and I see it breaking. Drive over it, vandalism, one of the hundred little motors having a defect... Why not just have two or three axis of movement in a more static, 90° construction??
The whole point of snake robotics is that one motor being a defect shouldn't render the entire robot useless. Of course that depends on intelligent control systems (algorithmic or mechanical) that can deal with limitations on any of the joints, without explicit damage sensors.
As for vandalism or getting driven over, well, that's not really a vulnerability exclusive to this approach.
For protection from vehicles, put a bollard on either side. If the cables have overload springs, which they should, forcing it to bend won't hurt anything.
The tentacle approach is mechanically elegant. The base mechanism is obviously a prototype, but that can be cleaned up for production.
Ice, water, and sand in the mechanism will be a problem for outdoor installations, so the base unit has to be protected against those.
