Desert creatures inspire ‘SandBot’ Published: 23 June
2009(GMT+10) This is the pre-publication version which was
subsequently revised to appear in Creation 33(2):53. Traversing
loose terrain quickly is not easy—even specialty vehicles such
as dune buggies can sometimes end up hopelessly mired in sand.
What happens is that the loose, soft-packed structure of sand
grains collapses under the weight of a vehicle’s wheels and
provide too little traction for the wheels to roll back out.
Robots, such as NASA’s Mars rovers, face a similar problem. If
their limbs move too fast over loose sand, they can become
mired. Going more slowly lessens that risk, but of course that
increases travel times. Researchers led by Daniel Goldman of the
Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, USA, noticed that
when desert creatures such as lizards and cockroaches move
across sand, their limbs do not move at a steady rate. Instead,
they tread slowly when in contact with the sand, but rapidly
through the air to touch the sand again. S