{"389951":{"#nid":"389951","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Snake robots learn to turn by following the lead of real sidewinders","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EResearchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) who develop snake-like robots have picked up a few tricks from real sidewinder rattlesnakes on how to make rapid and even sharp turns with their undulating, modular device.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWorking with colleagues at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Zoo Atlanta, they have analyzed the motions of sidewinders and tested their observations on CMU\u2019s snake robots. They showed how the complex motion of a sidewinder can be described in terms of two wave motions \u2013 vertical and horizontal body waves \u2013 and how changing the phase and amplitude of the waves enables snakes to achieve exceptional maneuverability.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe\u2019ve been programming snake robots for years and have figured out how to get these robots to crawl amidst rubble and through or around pipes,\u201d said Howie Choset, professor at CMU\u2019s Robotics Institute. \u201cBy learning from real sidewinders, however, we can make these maneuvers much more efficient and simplify user control. This makes our modular robots much more valuable as tools for urban search-and-rescue tasks, power plant inspections and even archaeological exploration.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETheir findings are being published this week in the \u003Cem\u003EProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences\u003C\/em\u003E Early Edition.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe work is a continuation of collaboration between Choset; Daniel Goldman, a Georgia Tech associate professor of physics, and Joseph Mendelson III, director of research at Zoo Atlanta. An earlier study, published on Oct. 10, 2014, in the journal \u003Cem\u003EScience\u003C\/em\u003E, analyzed the ability of sidewinders to quickly climb sandy slopes. It showed that despite the snake\u2019s hundreds of body elements and thousands of muscles, the sidewinding motion could be simply modeled as a combination of a vertical and horizontal body wave.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWith the model in hand and with a method to measure the movements of living snakes, the team, led by Henry Astley, a postdoctoral researcher in Goldman\u2019s group, was able to observe that sidewinders make gradual changes in direction by altering the horizontal wave while keeping the vertical wave constant. They also discovered that making a large phase shift in the vertical wave enabled the snake to make a sharp turn in the opposite direction.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EApplying these controls to the robot allowed the robot to replicate the turns of the snake, while also simplifying control.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cBy looking for insights in nature, we were able to dramatically improve the control and maneuverability of the robot,\u201d Astley said, \u201cwhile at the same time using the robot as a tool to test the theorized control mechanisms of biological sidewinders.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe modular snake robot used in this study was specifically designed to pass horizontal and vertical waves through its body to move in three-dimensional spaces. The robot is two inches in diameter and 37 inches long; its body consists of 16 joints, each joint arranged perpendicular to the previous one. That allows it to assume a number of configurations and to move using a variety of gaits \u2013 some similar to those of a biological snake.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Army Research Office, the Georgia Tech School of Biology and the Elizabeth Smithgall Watts Endowment. In addition to those already named, the research team included Miguel Serrano, Patricio Vela and David L. Hu of Georgia Tech, and Chaohui Gong, Jin Dai and Matthew Travers of Carnegie Mellon.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch News\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E177 North Avenue\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAtlanta, Georgia\u0026nbsp; 30332-0181\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Relations Contacts\u003C\/strong\u003E: John Toon, Georgia Tech: (404-894-6986) (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) or Byron Spice, Carnegie Mellon (412-268-9068) (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:bspice@cs.cmu.edu\u0022\u003Ebspice@cs.cmu.edu\u003C\/a\u003E).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter\u003C\/strong\u003E: Byron Spice, Carnegie Mellon\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EResearchers at Carnegie Mellon University who develop snake-like robots have picked up a few tricks from real sidewinder rattlesnakes on how to make rapid and even sharp turns with their undulating, modular device.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Researchers who develop snake-like robots have picked up a few tricks from real sidewinder rattlesnakes on how to make rapid and even sharp turns with their undulating, modular device."}],"uid":"27303","created_gmt":"2015-03-24 09:21:48","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:03:00","author":"John Toon","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2015-03-24T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2015-03-24T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"389911":{"id":"389911","type":"image","title":"Sidewinder study","body":null,"created":"1449246312","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:25:12","changed":"1475894378","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:39:38","alt":"Sidewinder study","file":{"fid":"75514","name":"sidewinder023_0.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/sidewinder023_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/sidewinder023_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1463254,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/sidewinder023_0.jpg?itok=qqDGbN9H"}},"389921":{"id":"389921","type":"image","title":"Sidewinder study2","body":null,"created":"1449246312","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:25:12","changed":"1475894349","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:39:09","alt":"Sidewinder study2","file":{"fid":"75515","name":"sidewinder020.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/sidewinder020.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/sidewinder020.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1984469,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/sidewinder020.jpg?itok=-X1fMQpN"}},"389931":{"id":"389931","type":"image","title":"Snake robot","body":null,"created":"1449246312","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:25:12","changed":"1475894349","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:39:09","alt":"Snake robot","file":{"fid":"75516","name":"snake_robot.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/snake_robot.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/snake_robot.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":371436,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/snake_robot.jpg?itok=5ntgvUzi"}}},"media_ids":["389911","389921","389931"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"150","name":"Physics and Physical Sciences"},{"id":"152","name":"Robotics"}],"keywords":[{"id":"47881","name":"Dan Goldman"},{"id":"1356","name":"robot"},{"id":"170833","name":"sidwinder"},{"id":"169244","name":"snake robot"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"},{"id":"39521","name":"Robotics"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Toon\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearch News\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E(404) 894-6986\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jtoon@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}