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Fig. 11.4 Polyurethane micro-hair arrays mimic the hairs (or setae) on a gecko's feet that enable
vertical climbing (Wu et al.
2013
). (Images provided courtesy of Springer)
Fig. 11.5 A gecko-inspired robot is shown climbing vertical walls of different materials.
Vertical climbing is enabled with the robot's polyurethane micro-hair array on its wheels
(Wu et al.
2013
). (Images provided courtesy of Springer)
the Geckobot to the surface. Experimental studies demonstrated that the mobile
sensor could walk at a speed of up to 5 and 1 cm/s on a flat and inclined surface,
respectively. However, one limitation was that the robot could not climb a normal
or 90 surface.
In contrast, Wu et al. (
2013
) proposed a climbing robot with two pedrails, in
lieu of individual wheels or robotic feet. A unique feature of the pedrail was that it
featured dry adhesive pedrails modeled after the gecko's feet. The surface of the
pedrail was patterned with micro-fiber hair arrays, very much similar to the
spatulae that populates setae found on Gecko's feet. The micro-fiber hair array was
fabricated using polyurethane and is shown in Fig.
11.4
. The prototype gecko-
inspired robot successfully climbed surface materials and of different inclinations
(Fig.
11.5
).
Robots inspired by other creatures, including snakes, have also been explored.
For example, Enner et al. (
2012
,
2013
) proposed a snake-like robot for monitoring
pipeline systems. The main function of the snake-inspired robot was to measure
the pipe's diameter, since its diameter could change as a result of corrosion
or damage. The robot could wrap itself inside the pipe or along the outer surface.
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