Recently, a vehicle had to go a long way to avoid another sandy area. These incidents led some scientists to develop ways to keep the costly robots from being trapped in the sand. These scientists looked to nature for their ideas.
The researchers flew deadly snakes to Zoo Atlanta in Atlanta, Georgia. The snakes, called sidewinder rattlers, are native to the southwestern United States.
The creatures were put in a specially designed sandbox with inclines that could be raised up or lowered. The scientists used high-speed video cameras to record the position of the snakes as they moved sideways up different inclines. Their movement is called sidewinding.
Daniel Goldman teaches physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. He says the snakes moved easily in the sand —even when the sand began moving.
“We noticed that the animals were in fact sidewinding, using the same kind of pattern of sidewinding they use on hard ground.”
Researchers then performed experiments with a robot developed at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania. The robot is called MOD-Snake. It is one meter long, and has 16 parts or modules. Each module is 6 centimeters wide.
Daniel Goldman says the robot has a long history of getting in and out of tight places. Researchers wanted to get the MOD-Snake to climb in the same way as the sidewinder rattlers.
The researchers performed the same experiment with other snakes closely related to the rattlers. But all of those creatures failed to slide up the inclines.
“Robots are expensive. And a robot gets stuck in the sand, that’s a problem. We realize that sidewinders never ever, ever get stuck in the sand!” The researchers hope the new sidewinder robot will travel up and down sand dunes just as well.
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oUm2H1Q-L-8hWRNX6tXftRRShVUQ Jan 26, 2019 3:43:11 PM
The article has many mistakes.BAD APP！
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