Climbing robots in a sticky situation

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (53) ◽  
pp. eabh2682
Author(s):  
Bruce P. Lee

Mussel-inspired electro-responsive adhesive hydrogels enable robot climbing on conductive surfaces.

Author(s):  
J. T. Woodward ◽  
J. A. N. Zasadzinski

The Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) offers exciting new ways of imaging surfaces of biological or organic materials with resolution to the sub-molecular scale. Rigid, conductive surfaces can readily be imaged with the STM with atomic resolution. Unfortunately, organic surfaces are neither sufficiently conductive or rigid enough to be examined directly with the STM. At present, nonconductive surfaces can be examined in two ways: 1) Using the AFM, which measures the deflection of a weak spring as it is dragged across the surface, or 2) coating or replicating non-conductive surfaces with metal layers so as to make them conductive, then imaging with the STM. However, we have found that the conventional freeze-fracture technique, while extremely useful for imaging bulk organic materials with STM, must be modified considerably for optimal use in the STM.


Robotics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 96
Author(s):  
Yankai Wang ◽  
Qiaoling Du ◽  
Tianhe Zhang ◽  
Chengze Xue

Hybrid mobile robots with two motion modes of a wheeled vehicle and truss structure with the ability to climb poles have significant flexibility. The motion planning of this kind of robot on a pole has been widely studied, but few studies have focused on the transition of the robot from the ground to the pole. In this study, a locomotion strategy of wheeled-legged pole-climbing robots (the WL_PCR) is proposed to solve the problem of ground-to-pole transition. By analyzing the force of static and dynamic process in the ground-to-pole transition, the condition of torque provided by the gripper and moving joint is proposed. The mathematical expression of Centre of Mass (CoM) of the wheeled-legged pole-climbing robots is utilized, and the conditions for the robot to smoothly transition from the ground to the vertical pole are proposed. Finally, the feasibility of this method is proved by the simulation and experimentation of a locomotion strategy on wheeled-legged pole-climbing robots.


10.5772/7228 ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hu Bing-Shan ◽  
Wang Li-Wen ◽  
Fu Zhuang ◽  
Zhao Yan-zheng

Wall climbing robots using negative pressure suction always employ air pumps which have great noise and large volume. Two prototypes of bio-inspired miniature suction cup actuated by shape memory alloy (SMA) are designed based on studying characteristics of biologic suction apparatuses, and the suction cups in this paper can be used as adhesion mechanisms for miniature wall climbing robots without air pumps. The first prototype with a two-way shape memory effect (TWSME) extension TiNi spring imitates the piston structure of the stalked sucker; the second one actuated by a one way SMA actuator with a bias has a basic structure of stiff margin, guiding element, leader and elastic element. Analytical model of the second prototype is founded considering the constitutive model of the SMA actuator, the deflection of the thin elastic plate under compound load and the thermo-dynamic model of the sealed air cavity. Experiments are done to test their suction characteristics, and the analytical model of the second prototype is simulated on Matlab/simulink platform and validated by experiments.


2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (27) ◽  
pp. 14096-14107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bhaskar Chilukuri ◽  
Ursula Mazur ◽  
K. W. Hipps

Implication of dispersion interactions on geometric, adsorption and electronic properties of porphyrin monolayer on conductive surfaces using density functional theory.


Author(s):  
Yaping Shi ◽  
Guangxia Feng ◽  
Xiaoliang Li ◽  
Xu Yang ◽  
Abdulsattar H. Ghanim ◽  
...  

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