What is it about?
Snails can carry heavy loads while crawling, which has inspired a new operational mode for wall-climbing robots. In this work, we investigated the secret behind snails' ability to crawl with heavy loads and successfully replicated it in a robotic system.
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Photo by amirali mirhashemian on Unsplash
Why is it important?
The ability to crawl with a load is crucial for expanding the application of robots in a wider range of future scenarios, such as wind turbine blade inspection and building facade cleaning. The snail robot has achieved loaded sliding motion with over ten times its own weight, along with much lower energy consumption compared to existing commercial solutions. These features demonstrate the great potential of the snail robot for practical applications.
Perspectives
It is cool to link the biological strategy of snail's movement with a robotic climbing solution. We hope the technology proposed in this article could expand a new path for future climbing robots.
Tianqi Yue
University of Bristol
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Snail-inspired water-enhanced soft sliding suction for climbing robots, Nature Communications, May 2024, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-48293-2.
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