New from Stanford - a tiny robot called Microtugs that can pull 100 times its own weight. In fact, when they scaled the robot up, it was able to haul even more than 2,000 times its own weight! The new technology is really exciting and could have really interesting implications for search and rescue missions, along with construction. Who knows! Perhaps the next skyscrapers will be built by these little robots pulling huge beams up buildings?
The robot was created by Stanford University engineers who are planning to demo and present on this new robot in at the upcoming ICRA 2015 conference in Seattle, WA from May 26th thru May 30th. The ICRA conference is hosted by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society each year.
The creation of this robot utilizes nature as an inspiration to unlock the mysteries of how tiny creatures like ants can carry exponentially more than their weight. This particular innovation used Geckos as their inspiration. The underbelly of the robot has tiny rubber spikes that act like adhesive feet (much like insects who climb on walls and ceilings). The robot can push these rubber spikes into a surface to increase the surface area of the rubber, increasing the adhesive capabilities. When the rubber spikes are straightened out, they easily lose their adhesiveness, making it easy for the robot to control each rubber spike.
Microtugs on the inside (via Stanford)
However, more than just using rubber adhesive feet as the secret to this technology, they also use a unique movement to get the robot to pull over 100 times its own weight. Rather than just using brute force to power the weight up the wall, the robot inches its way up the wall like an inchworm – kind of literally. The feet in front act as a sticky anchor to keep the robot in place and carry the load, while the other feet move forward and create an anchor that will allow the other feet to inch forward. If a robot were able to climb mountains, than this is how it would be done, I suppose.
The most exciting part about this new super strong robot is how much weight it can carry. They started with a 20 milligram robot could carry 500 milligram up a wall. That’s about 25 times its own weight, which is impressive for the microscopic robot. The working demo they have a video of is a 9 gram robot that is able to carry an impressive 1kg weight up a wall! Even more impressive is a bigger 12 gram robot, called µTug, that was able to carry weight more than 2000 times heavier than it! This is the equivalent of a human carrying a blue whale, in math terms.
The team hopes that the robot can aid in search and rescue missions where large debris must be lifted off of victims. Its seems that a larger version of this robot can have a lot of applications. Given the positive results so far, it doesn’t seem farfetched that this type of technology can have practical applications in the near future.
C
See more news at: