A Legged Robot That Specializes In Scuttling Across Sand
Sand Strider This little legged robot moves especially efficiently on grainy media, such as sand. Image courtesy of Chen Li, Tingnan Zhang, Daniel GoodmanThe math that went into this robot could improve planetary rovers in the future, researchers say. Is this what the Mars rovers of the future might look like? Physicists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have tackled an unusual robot problem: How to walk across sand. There are plenty of mathematical models for how animals and machines move through air and water and over solid ground, the team wrote in a paper they published today in the journal Science. But, they wrote, research is just starting on the math of walking through sand, gravel, or any other "naturally occurring granular media of high sphericity and roundness." Considering that sand is pretty common on Earth and other planets, the researchers decided to try to create better equations for beachside locomotion. They...