Waalbot Climbs Walls

Well well, here’s yet another wall-climbing robot – the Waalbot. This one features just three legs though, using dry adhesion to stick to walls and ceilings as it climbs. Why the tri-leg design? Well, it utilizes simple rotary actuators for a single degree of freedom motion, but also throws in passive joints and elastic flexures which allows this motion to provide the preload and peeling forces necessary to climb using dry adhesion. The Waalbot is ap roduct of Carnegie Mellon University, and is tiny enough to be controlled by virtually any one, overcoming tiny obstacles and low angle surface curvatures with ease thanks to the legged motion. I wonder when will the military recruit this little bugger.