Electrostatic/Gecko-like Adhesives for Robotic Applications

In the robotics community, there is considerable interest in robotic grippers as well as climbing and perching mobile robots that can operate on a wide variety of surfaces. The key is the design of controllable attachment mechanisms that can easily turn the adhesion on and off to allow a robotic gripper to engage/disengage or a climbing robot to move on the surface. There have been numerous solutions for specific substrates (e.g. electromagnets for ferromagnetic walls, suction for smooth surfaces); however, these robots have limited usefulness as they tend to be too specialized. Instead, the Robotics Lab@IIT has developed controllable adhesives that can be applied to multiple surface materials with varying roughness. The adhesives are composed of gecko-like fibrillar stalks with an electrostatic adhesive backing. The two technologies work well in combination, often providing an adhesion pressure that is greater than the sum of its parts. This talk will discuss the bioinspired design process that led to this design, provide examples of robots and grippers that use the technology, and discuss our most recent results in the area.