Fabrication and Integration of Multi-Scale Compliant Elastomer Dry Adhesives with Climbing Robot Designs

We present a new manufacturing technology to produce multi-scale compliant feet for use with a novel climbing robot. Climbing robots for space exploration missions may allow scientists to explore environments too difficult for traditional wheeled designs. These climbing robot designs should be able to grasp or adhere to a variety of surface types at multiple angles in order to be effective. To adhere to multiple surfaces, biomimetic dry adhesives based on gecko feet have been proposed. These biomimetic dry adhesives work by using multi-scale compliant mechanisms to make intimate contact with different surfaces and adhere by using Van der Waals forces. Fabrication of these adhesives has frequently been challenging however, due to the difficulty in combining macro, micro and nanoscale compliance. We present here strategies for creating multi-scale compliant mechanisms from macro to nanoscale for use with bioinspired climbing robots for eventual use in space exploration.