Science: Nov 2, 2011

Simon Fraser University scientists have created a tank like robot that can scale walls using an adhesive that mimics gecko toes sticky.

Clingy silicone blend is shaped bumps shaped like a mushroom caps with the tiny 240-gram robot can climb smooth surfaces like glass or a white board.

Jeff Krahn - the lead author of research published Tuesday in the British science journal Smart Materials and Structures - said the technology could one day help robots performing various dangerous tasks such as clearing the way for nuclear power plants or searchand-rescue work in the collapsed buildings.

"Obviously [the application] to clean the glass skyscrapers, or control of the wharves, where it is difficult or dangerous for a person in there," Krahn said. "Leave no adhesive residue, such as tape or glue."

Known as the timing belt to climb the platform tailless (TBCP-11) and the prototype can climb over the wall onto the corners at speeds up to 3.4 inches per second.

Without using suction cups, claws, glue or other liquid securities, the prototype sticks to surfaces by hundreds of very small bumps on silicon, which is only 0.017 millimeters wide and 0.01 mm high. By comparison, human hair is about 0.1 mm thick.

They stick to the walls on the basis of van der Waals forces - the weak attractive force between molecules.

"The material itself is able to be attracted to the glass, but can represent a much larger area to be in touch, because it can correspond to the surface," Krahn said. "Although the van der Waals forces, which is considered relatively weak, thin and flexible shift the mushroom cap ensures that the area of contact between the robot and the surface is high."

"Adhesive pads geckos to follow the same principle of using a large number of fibers, each of which is a very small tip. Gecko more fibers are exposed, the greater the strength of attachment to the surface."

Sensors allow the robot to identify its surroundings, change direction, and fasten themselves, as to lose its grip.

Although the silicone adhesive is modeled after a gecko is a sticky toes, but his counterpart reptiles can climb surfaces such as concrete stronger.

"It's not quite as efficient as it is unable to work the same amount of material geckos," Krahn said.

Krahn and other researchers are now trying to increase its adhesive strength and to create a robot that can interrupt your power source and rely on its own battery and the computer brain that allows it to move autonomously and wirelessly.

He said working with other colleagues SFU climbing robot modeled after the spiders, one of the main food sources of gecko.

"We have unfortunately not yet calculated the cost to achieve a practical and a robot gecko, because we are still at the prototype stage," Krahn said.

The team at Stanford University in California has a different approach, using the gecko-like fibers feet, not stories that will help your robot to climb.

But the stories, driven by belts, are likely to have an advantage because they are simpler mechanical design, says Krahn.

Science

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