Earlier this fall, researchers from MIT revealed a robot that used the cheetah as basis for super-fast running. Another biomimetic feat in robotics has just been unveiled: from researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, Oregon State University, and Zoo Atlanta, comes a robot that can handle steep sandy surfaces with the grace of a rattlesnake.

Sidewinders are a type of rattlesnake native to the Southwestern U.S. and parts of Mexico. The species is infamous for its unique movement, where it curves its body repeatedly to move forward across difficult, sandy terrain. The research study was originally formed to learn more about how sidewinders move so easily across sand. The researchers designed a robot to test the principle of sidewinder motion.

Using one aspect of motion that sidewinders use, the researchers were able to make a robotic snake that could move across sandy surfaces on level ground. However, the robot failed to move up inclined planes. Then, the researchers discovered that the sidewinders' bodies work by increasing the surface area of their bodies touching the sand to create more traction. The researchers programmed their robot with this wave motion, and found that it was able to move up inclined sandy surfaces.

"We realized that the sidewinder snakes use a template for climbing on sand, two orthogonal waves that they can control independently. We used the snake robot to systematically study the failure modes in sidewinding. We learned there are three different failure regimes, which we can avoid by carefully adjusting the aspect ratio of the two waves, thus controlling the area of the body in contact with the sand," said Hamid Marvi, one of the researchers.

It's important for engineers to learn how to navigate their robots around sand in order to create truly versatile robots. For example, if research teams sent robots out to previously unexplored planets, it would be bad if the robot is stopped when it encounters sand.

"We are interested in how animals move on different types of granular and complex surfaces. The idea of moving on flowing materials like sand can be useful in a broad sense. This is one of the nicest examples of collaboration between biology and robotics," said Daniel Goldman, another one of the researchers.

The researchers released a video explaining the mechanics behind their discovery.