The emergence of a very small size robot that lightly moves his weight 2000 times

There are creatures in the natural world that lightly move the weights of their own weights lightly, but a robust robot that got inspiration from such living things "MicroTugs"Developed by researchers at Stanford University. The robot can move slightly a weight that is 2000 times its own weight.

Biomimetics and Dextrous Manipulation Lab | Main »MicroTugs
http://bdml.stanford.edu/Main/MicroTugs

Tiny robots climb walls carrying more than 100 times their weight - tech - 24 April 2015 - New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27413-tiny-robots-climb-walls-carrying-more-than-100-times-their-weight.html


A mechanical engineer at Stanford University has developed a small robot "MicroTugs" that can carry weights as much as 2000 times as heavy as its own. This robot will be held in Seattle for five days from 26th to 30th May 2015International Conference on Robotics and Automation 2015Details will be announced at ".


Small robot MicroTugs with palm size is moving ... ...


There is a weight of 45 pounds (about 20.4 kg).


The greatest secret of this little robot is the part of the bottom part, "Gecko"Special adhesive materials inspired from the feet are used. The surface of the adhesive material has become a very small plastic "hair", and when it is attached to the ground or a wall, the hair is flattened, and the ground surfaceVan der Waals forceIt works so that the robot can be firmly fixed. And when moving, moving the bottom part vertically from the ground plane allows "hair" to straighten and straight away from the face.


The adhesive material gets inspiration from the gecko foot, but the movement imitates "the scapa". After attaching the front part of the bottom part to the ground contact surface, MicroTugs moves like the back forward, bonds it to the surface, moves the front part forward and moves it in front, moves just like a scapet. By moving the adhesive parts alternately, the robot can carry the weight while sticking to the wall.

The way the MicroTugs move the mass much heavier than the one is seen in the following movie.

Super-robot pulls heavy loads - YouTube


Hanging on its own 100 times the weight, climbing the wall ......


It is also possible to move heavier weights.


In the prototype, we were able to move ten times the weight of ourselves.


The parts that make up MicroTugs look like this. The "Controllable Adhesive" at the bottom is the part where the floor and wall and the MicroTugs fit perfectly. As other parts, in addition to batteries, motors, boards, etc., cables and hooks for pulling the weight are also attached.


It is also possible to move sweetly with the wheel in the front part.


Elliott Hawke (right), a developer of MicroTugs, said he assembled this little robot with a microscope and tweezers. Furthermore, in the case of 12 grams of MicroTugs, it is possible to pull 2000 times as much as their own, so "This is like a human pulling a blue whale", Mr. David Kristensen, one of the developers I will explain (left).


In the future, the research team is thinking to apply the technology obtained by developing these robots to the transportation of heavy objects at factories and construction sites.