Conical sidewinding

Sidewinding is an efficient translation gait used by snakes and snake robots over flat ground, and resembles a helical tread moving over a core cylindrical geometry. Most sidewinding research has focused on straight-line translation of the snake, and less on steering capabilities. Here, we offer a new, geometrically intuitive method for steering this gait: Tapering the core cylinder into a cone, such that one end moves faster than the other, changing the heading of the robot as it drives forward. We present several design tools for working with this cone, along with experimental results on a physical robot turning at different rates.