The invention discloses a multi-cylinder snake-like robot system based on pneumatic muscles. Multi-cylinder elements formed by the pneumatic muscles serve as executing elements to drive movement of joints, and a function of completely simulating snake movement is achieved. A multi-cylinder snake-like robot based on the pneumatic muscles is mainly composed of the pneumatic muscles, connection pieces and a fixed plate. The shrinking movement range of the multi-cylinder elements formed by the pneumatic muscles which are stacked in a staggered manner is far larger than that of a single pneumatic muscle of the equal length. Each single multi-cylinder element can go forwards, retreat and swing, and a combination of the multi-cylinder elements can go forwards, retreat and swing in many directions. The multi-cylinder snake-like robot system based on the pneumatic muscles is driven by the multi-cylinder elements formed by the pneumatic muscles, has the beneficial effects of being large in output force and good in cleaning and anti-explosion performance, and can be used for teaching demonstration, obstacle crossing and part grabbing.