The amazing ability of sidewinder snakes to quickly climb sandy slopes was once something biologists only vaguely¹ understood and roboticists only dreamed of replicating². By studying the snakes in a unique bed of inclined sand and using a snake-like robot to test ideas spawned³ by observing the real animals, both biologists and roboticists have now gained long-sought insights. In a study published in the October 10 issue of the journal Science, researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, Oregon State University, and Zoo Atlanta report that sidewinders improve their ability to traverse sandy slopes by simply increasing the amount of their body area in contact with the granular surfaces they're climbing.

 

As part of the study, the principles used by the sidewinders to gracefully⁴ climb sand dunes⁵ were tested using a modular snake robot developed at Carnegie Mellon. Before the study, the snake robot could use one component⁶ of sidewinding motion to move across level ground, but was unable to climb the inclined sand trackway the real snakes could readily ascend⁷. In a real-world application -- an archaeological mission in Red Sea caves -- sandy inclines were especially challenging to the robot.

 

However, when the robot was programmed with the unique wave motion discovered in the sidewinders, it was able to climb slopes that had previously⁸ been unattainable. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Army Research Office, and the Army Research Laboratory.

 

"Our initial idea was to use the robot as a physical model to learn what the snakes experienced," said Daniel Goldman, an associate professor in Georgia Tech's School of Physics. "By studying the animal and the physical model simultaneously⁹, we learned important general principles that allowed us to not only understand the animal, but also to improve the robot."

 

The detailed¹⁰ study showed that both horizontal and vertical¹¹ motion had to be understood and then replicated¹² on the snake-like robot for it to be useful on sloping sand.

 

"Think of the motion as an elliptical cylinder¹³ enveloped¹⁴ by a revolving¹⁵ tread, similar to that of a tank," said Howie Choset, a Carnegie Mellon professor of robotics. "As the tread circulates around the cylinder, it is constantly placing itself down in front of the direction of motion and picking itself up in the back. The snake lifts some body segments while others remain on the ground, and as the slope increases, the cross section of the cylinder flattens¹⁶."

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