NASA Creates Robots That Can Climb Walls

(techno music)

My name is Jaakko Karras

and I'm a robotics engineer here at NASA JPL.

Today we're here in the robotic prototyping lab

where we essentially do a lot of rapid prototyping

to come up with new technologies for future NASA missions.

We've got things like 3D printers, we've got laser cutters.

We've got a lot of good equipment set up.

And so you know what we do is we come up

with new concepts to enable new space exploration.

We quickly build prototypes,

and we test those and we try to mature the technology.

One technology that's particularly exciting

that we've worked on a lot here

is the gecko adhesive gripper technology.

The gecko adhesive is inspired by geckos.

What geckos have on their toes

is essentially a ton of very, very fine hairs.

And so when a gecko brings it's toe into contact

with a surface, those fine hairs adhere

to the surface with what are called

van der Waals interations.

The gecko adhesive is useful not only for grippers,

but also for future space robotics.

Putting this gecko adhesive onto wheels on a robot

to enable the robot to drive along a solar panel,

to do maybe inspection or repair on a satellite

in orbit in zero gravity.

One thing that we've actually

been working on a fair amount is microspines.

Microspines are also inspired by nature.

We're sort of emulating the claws

that you see on the feet of insects or lizards.

Microspines, they're basically sharp claws

that we put onto the ends of compliant mechanisms,

to enable us to climb rough surfaces.

Microspine technology is really it's that

if you have a surface that has a lot

of holes and divots and such,

and you have a lot of sharp claws,

those tend to sort of opportunistically

find places to perch and grasp onto.

So now we have the gecko adhesives

for smooth surfaces and we supplement

with the microspines for rough surfaces.

A lot of the same sorts of applications

that we do with the gecko adhesives also apply here.

We can build grippers with microspine claws

for an astronaut wanting to anchor

to the surface of an asteroid.

Or maybe it's a robot that we put microspines on

so that it can climb a cliff on Mars.

All these types of features

are very challenging to maneuver on.

And so we really need some new technologies

to supplement future missions to get us

on to those features.