A snake robot modeled from a real sidewinder snake has been tested by researchers from Georgia Tech and may possible be used in search rescues.

The sidewinder rattlesnake robot is a mechanical serpent that can move across any kind of surface even those that are sandy be it flat or even inclined. With the features of the snake robot, it has now offered a new way for search and rescue robots to be used.

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Snakes are limbless by nature however, it can climb trees, swim and even glide through the air. Due to this, the robot was patterned to the reptile as it has mastered moving through the sand, a granular substrate made up of tiny solids but moves like liquid.

One robot patterned on the snake was built by one of the researchers named Howie Choset, a roboticist at Carnegie Mellon University and the co-author of the study. The robot has been used at an archeological mission to look through ancient Egyptian caves that are believed to have artifacts that are already a thousand years old. However, the robot got stuck in the sand leaving him to team up with another researcher to redesign.

The two researchers went to the Yuma Desert in Arizona to be able to get sidewinder rattlesnakes and even got a sample of the sand for their samples to traverse in. 

Although the researchers regarded that the way the snake slithers is kind of crazy, it actually works very well for them to be able to travel with no problem at all. Basically, the snake is sidewinding as its body keeps on zigzagging. The zigzagging and the sidewinding forces work very well together unlike the normal snakes that slither in a straightforward way.

The snake-like robots will be used in traversing rough terrain or entering damaged buildings to look for possible survivors.

TagsSnake robot, rattlesnake, sidewinder, rescue robots, rescue operations