Snakes and snake-like robots show how sidewinders conquer sandy slopes
Friday, October 10, 2014 - 11:31
in Biology & Nature
The amazing ability of sidewinder snakes to quickly climb sandy slopes was once something biologists only vaguely understood and roboticists only dreamed of replicating. By studying the snakes in a unique bed of inclined sand and using a snake-like robot to test ideas spawned by observing the real animals, both biologists and roboticists have now gained long-sought insights.