Wall Climbing Robots

We are used to see robots on the ground. I have never seen robots climbing walls until I read the IEEE Spectrum article on wall climbing robots. Here are a few images:

Photo: Mark Cutkosky/Stanford University

The above Stanford's wall climbing robot uses gecko-inspired directional adhesives on its feet. Why being inspired by a gecko you ask? Because, in concordance with the wiki description of the gecko, "the toes of the gecko have attracted a lot of attention,as they adhere to a wide variety of surfaces, without the use of liquids or surface tension. Recent studies of the spatula tipped setae on gecko footpads demonstrate that the attractive forces that hold geckos to surfaces are van der Waals interactions between the finely divided setae and the surfaces themselves."

Photo: Harsha Prahlad/SRI International

The above robot is the static clinger that uses electrostatic forces to clamp to a vertical surface.

Read the IEEE Spectrum article for more details on each of these robots and watch the videos mentioned in there.