Stickybot III Gets Climbing
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Monday, 30 of August , 2010 at 12:55 am
We were among the very first to see the latest generation of Stanford’s gecko-inspired climbing robot, Stickybot III, earlier this year at the Stanford National Robotics Week event. While Stickbot III could stick to surfaces, the climbing technique (one of those harder than it sounds things) was still in the works. Just recently, they’ve figured out how get it climbing at a brisk 5 cm/sec, as you can see in the video above.
The tricky part now is making the robot completely steerable. To do that, the feet need to be able to rotate around to point backwards, since the adhesive is only sticky in one direction and won’t stick at all without some force being applied (i.e. the weight of the robot). So for example, in its current incarnation Stickybot III can’t climb headfirst down, since its sticky feet only work in the up direction. Therefore, the feet need to be able to rotate so that they’re always pointing up irrespective of the orientation of Stickybot itself. It’s what geckos (real ones) do, check it out:
It must be a mixed blessing to be developing a robot that’s so closely inspired by an animal. On the upside, if you need a clue about how to do something like turn while climbing, you can always just take a peek at the gecko itself. But at the same time, the actual gecko is going to be doing everything you want your robot to be doing, except way better and without trying.
At least it’s not cuter. And incidentally, Stickybot III is a she.
[ Stickybot ] VIA [ Stanford News ]
Thanks Salomon!
Comments (3)
Category: Biorobotics
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Comment by Hendrik
Made Tuesday, 31 of August , 2010 at 3:21 am
Body heeds a joint in the middle to steer it…
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