The synergy between the insect-inspired claws and adhesive pads increases the attachment ability on various rough surfaces

To attach reliably on various inclined rough surfaces, many insects have evolved both claws and adhesive pads on their feet. However, the interaction between these organs still remains unclear. Here we designed an artificial attachment device, which mimics the structure and function of claws and adhesive pads, and tested it on stiff spheres of different dimensions. The results show that the attachment forces of claws decrease with an increase of the sphere radius. The forces may become very strong, when the sphere radius is smaller or comparable to the claw radius, because of the frictional self-lock. On the other hand, adhesive pads generate considerable adhesion on large sphere diameter due to large contact areas. The synergy effect between the claws and adhesive pads leads to much stronger attachment forces, if compared to the action of claw or adhesive pads independently (or even to the sum of both). The results carried out by our insect-inspired artificial attachment device clearly demonstrate why biological evolution employed two attachment organs working in concert. The results may greatly inspire the robot design, to obtain reliable attachment forces on various substrates.