Abstract
Insect-inspired foot materials can enable robots to walk on surfaces regardless of the direction of gravity, which significantly increases the functional workspace of a compact robot. Previously, Mini-Whegs™, a small robot that uses four wheel-legs for locomotion, was converted to a wall-walking robot with compliant, conventional-adhesive feet. In this work, the feet were replaced with a novel, reusable insect-inspired adhesive. The reusable structured polymer adhesive has less tenacity than the previous adhesive, resulting in less climbing capability. However, after the addition of a tail, changing to off-board power, and widening the feet, the robot is capable of ascending vertical surfaces using the novel adhesive.
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© 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Daltorio, K.A., Gorb, S., Peressadko, A., Horchler, A.D., Ritzmann, R.E., Quinn, R.D. (2006). A Robot that Climbs Walls using Micro-structured Polymer Feet. In: Tokhi, M.O., Virk, G.S., Hossain, M.A. (eds) Climbing and Walking Robots. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-26415-9_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-26415-9_15
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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