New Robots Developed To Climb Walls

An anonymous reader writes "SRI International, a nonprofit research and development organization, has developed a new technology that enables some robots to scale walls. The wall-climbing robots could be a boon for the US military, which could use them on reconnaissance or other missions in war zones, said Philip von Guggenberg, director of business development for SRI International, adding that the independent group has received some funding from DARPA, the technology research arm of the Pentagon. Von Guggenberg said that the new electrical adhesive technology called compliant electroadhesion, provides an electrically controllable way to stick machines to a wall. So what can they do? That adhesion lets the robots, using either feet or tracks, scale a vertical wall. They can even climb walls covered in dust and debris, or made out of concrete, wood, steel, glass, drywall, and brick. Good news is that regular robots, especially those with tracks, can be retrofitted with the technology and turned into wall climbers. Maybe if the kids are good, they'll get one for Christmas."

Electroadhesive robots

[$RANDOMLUSER (804576)]

Never mind the military uses, how about using them for construction purposes?

Re:Electroadhesive robots

[Frosty Piss (770223)]

Never mind the military uses, how about using them for construction purposes?

Indeed. It's pretty sad that most (or just a lot? It seems like most...) new technology comes about for "military needs". Imagen if all this effort was devoted to developing technology whose actual purpose was peaceful applications to benefit a peaceful society... The money we spend on war prevents a renaissance of humanity.

They need fundind

[DrYak (748999)]

Never mind the military uses, how about using them for construction purposes?

Indeed. It's pretty sad that most (or just a lot? It seems like most...) new technology comes about for "military needs".

It will probably be mainly used for construction in the future. It's just that they need more funding for the project. And these day adding "and it helps fighting the evil terrorists !" at the end of a press release increases your chance of getting government funds.

Just like the obviously outrageous "this will eradicate cancer !" claims that you see each time some bio-medical research lab publishes some obscure discovery.

The exclusivity of our times

[mi (197448)]

And these day adding [...]

"These days"? You are forgetting the original reasons GPS and the Internet got created, to name just two...

Seriously, if it weren't for the fear of and the designs over property and women of the neighbors, humans would've still been hunting-and-gathering (mostly gathering, of course)...

The "BIG Scary Enemy" change over time.

[DrYak (748999)]

"These days"? You are forgetting the original reasons GPS and the Internet got created, to name just two...

The "these days" was referring to "fighting evil terrorists !".
In the sense that before that, it used to be "fighting godless communists !", etc.

Seriously, if it weren't for the fear of and the designs over property and women of the neighbors, humans would've still been hunting-and-gathering (mostly gathering, of course)...

One can take human history as an example. Old Greece. Yes, some greek genuis like Archimedes got his name become legendary following feats during a military siege. On the other hand the most prolific period in terms of art and philosophy of the greek history, the so called Golden Centruy, happened during a time of peace *after the end* of the Persian wars.

More cl

Re:Electroadhesive robots

[TubeSteak (669689)]

Imagen if all this effort was devoted to developing technology whose actual purpose was peaceful applications to benefit a peaceful society... The money we spend on war prevents a renaissance of humanity.

The money we spend on war brought us the Internet, which has arguably brought about a modern day renaissance.

Not to mention that the military is responsible for the commercialization of a wide variety of technologies that go into making safer & cheaper products for everyone.

As for why so much technology is developed for the military...
It's because they are willing to go into a cost plus contract with companies.
Nothing like having the military pay for all the cost overruns & extra R&D.

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[ichigo 2.0 (900288)]

The money we spend on war brought us the Internet, which has arguably brought about a modern day renaissance.

That is most likely a happy coincidence. Imagine how many internet-equivalents we might already have if money was spent on peaceful purposes instead!

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[ichigo 2.0 (900288)]

I imagine none. Go ahead and refute that.

And I imagine 5 trillion. You go ahead and refute that. ;)

What nonsense!

[A nonymous Coward (7548)]

As for why so much technology is developed for the military...
It's because they are willing to go into a cost plus contract with companies.
Nothing like having the military pay for all the cost overruns & extra R&D.

Military-inspired tech existed long before the concept of cost plus contracts.

You really need to extend your knowledge of history back farther than what has happened since you began reading.

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[A nonymous Coward (7548)]

No, ARPA wanted some flexible way to communicate in the case of nuclear war of tremendous natural disasters. ARPA is a US defense agency.

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[PitaBred (632671)]

There's a difference between Iraq War spending and military research spending. We've spent MUCH less on military research than funding the endless war. I don't think you know what you're talking about... military research funding = good. Military operational funding = good when we have something worthwhile we're doing. Right now military operational funding = bad.

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[couchslug (175151)]

"The money we spend on war prevents a renaissance of humanity."

War removes old, defective, degenerate, weak systems. (The revolutions in the US, France, Russia, and China are examples.) Inconclusive wars are less effective, which argues for waging war with sufficient force to accomplish the object of the conflict.

"The money we spend on war prevents a renaissance of humanity."

The churn of war gives the opportunity for human improvement static (i.e. "warless", conflict-free) social systems do not.

War is an an

Flaw in the Wall

[camperdave (969942)]

how about using them for construction purposes?

Well, the wall climbing robot suffers from one debilitating flaw when it comes to construction. You see, in order to climb a wall, the wall needs to be there first.

Re:

[kitsunewarlock (971818)]

yes, so using it to help...you know...put in wiring behind walls, paint, test durability or just climb up the bracing before the wall is put up is obviously a silly waste of time.

Well, actually, until these little buggers become cost effective it probably is. Yipes!

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[DeadChobi (740395)]

Why would we put bracing up before putting a wall up? That doesn't make sense. I think there's one viable construction use that would actually be worthwhile, and that's because otherwise someone has to stick their hand in the wall to do it.

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[somersault (912633)]

Never mind the construction purposes, I want a car that I can park on the side of my office building!

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[Artichoke (34549)]

Robot technology doesn't really grow in leaps and bounds [...]

That's 'cos they keep fitting the bally things with caterpillar tracks and not power-jumpers :P

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[hairyfeet (841228)]

Sad but oh so true. With over a hundred countries voting to ban cluster bombs,who kill and maim untold numbers of civilians long after the battle has passed,not to mention the young children who pick them up thinking them to be toys,guess who voted to not support the ban? I guess killing all those civilians and kids is okay as long as you might get one of them evil terrorists. But that is my 02c,YMMV.

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[hairyfeet (841228)]

Are you saying you are FOR cluster bombs? Cluster bombs have never proven to be effective in the battlefield and were designed for a cold war scenario of massive Russian troops rolling down the street. In todays wars they do nothing but kill civilians and kids. There is even less of a point to cluster bombs than there is to land mines,which I can at least see being useful in guarding the border between North and South Korea.

But cluster bombs are just a menace and leave a land a deadly killing field long

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[somersault (912633)]

Not if he has his own super nano-bots protecting him! He'll just start giggling uncontrollably as the tickly little wars go on all over and inside his body

Easier way!

[www.sorehands.com (142825)]

Why not have have the robots bitten by a genetically engineered spider?

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[flyingfsck (986395)]

Only two replies and the PC World server is already bitten by the Slashdot Spider.

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[GrievousMistake (880829)]

Why the hell would they link to PC World, anyway? Popular Mechanics [popularmechanics.com] has a video, The Register [theregister.co.uk] has a entertaining writeup, and SRI's site [sri.com] has pictures, a diagram and some specs. All PC World has is tons of ads.

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[StreetStealth (980200)]

Do you really want a robot like that to end up with a huge identity crisis and ponder back and forth whether it should ask out the recon drone it has a crush on?

What I hate

[davevt5 (30696)]

I hate posts that link to articles with no pictures!

http://www.sri.com/rd/electroadhesion.html

Gecko feet

[DigiShaman (671371)]

Cool, so they managed to synthesize how a gecko sticks to surfaces...

Question: Can this technology be applied to tires? Having more grip with less surface area contact would be a major improvement.

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[Ksevio (865461)]

They said it doesn't work very well on damp surfaces which is when you need the most grip with a car so it wouldn't be very useful for that application.

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[Bob-taro (996889)]

Cool, so they managed to synthesize how a gecko sticks to surfaces...

I'm not sure it's exactly the same thing, in light of this article. [slashdot.org]

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[blueZ3 (744446)]

With conventional tires it's a trade off. Stickier tires are less efficient and last fewer miles. You can already buy VERY sticky tires, the kind dragsters use--the reasons that nobody puts these on their daily driver are 1)cost 2)gas mileage goes down 3)they have a shorter life.

I don't see how some outside force applied to the tire would provide much different characteristics in these areas than is possible with conventional materials science.

Anyway, as some other post already said, it's the driver, not th

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[TigerNut (718742)]

The cool thing is that, like aerodynamic downforce, electrostatic friction would be adjustable (on the fly), and would not incur an inertia penalty relative to just using mass to increase your traction. If you could drive your car on near-bicycle size tires so as to reduce rolling friction, and still have acceptable acceleration, cornering and braking ability due to adaptive static friction control then it would be possible to get significantly higher mileage.

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[somersault (912633)]

Current tyre technology works fine at speeds upward of 150mph (depending on the tyre you buy, they are all rated differently and proper racing tyres need to be 'warmed up' before they grip properly), it's just the drivers that are the issue. It could improve safety slightly, but it would hardly be 'phenomenal' considering that most accidents are due to the drivers rather than the cars. There will always be idiots trying to push a vehicle beyond what it can actually do (that's fine on a racetrack, not so muc

Add window washers to the list

[NotQuiteReal (608241)]

Of people who's job can be replaced by a robot.

Roland? Is that you?

[Frosty Piss (770223)]

Shouldn't this story have a Roland Piquepaille by-line?

Sorry, I'll shut up now...

what? no

[westcoast philly (991705)]

I for one, Welcome out new electro-stick spybot war machine overlords. ...jokes yet? Pretty cool, but frightening.

Easy defense against these robots

[imrtt (1287370)]

The article mentions that electroadhesion doesn't work well on damp surfaces. All you need to defend against these robots is a bucket of water.

Great...Just effin' great

[hyades1 (1149581)]

My job's already got me climbing the goddamn walls, and for a fraction of the cost of a goddamn robot.

They might as well finish the job and make me totally redundant. Invent a robot that begs my girlfriend for sex and gets turned down

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[bledri (1283728)]

They might as well finish the job and make me totally redundant. Invent a robot that begs my girlfriend for sex and gets turned down

Nothing personal, but with the right attachments it may not get turned down... Ouch.

Save some money...

[arotenbe (1203922)]

I used to have a little toy that would do this. You turned it on and it stuck to the wall and climbed up very slowly. Its primary function was running out batteries.

Tagged: suctioncup

What ... ?

[the bluebrain (443451)]

... now we'll have robots lording over us from random vertical surfaces?
I, for one, am not sure I welcome the idea.

Hmm.

[phreakincool (975248)]

"In the future: human wall climbing: For uses ranging from Special Forces needs to exterior window-cleaning "
Superhero uniform check-list:

1 - Full-body/form fitting unitard: check

1 - Ski Mask to hide my secret identity: check

1 - No shame what-so-ever: check

6 - Electroadhesive robotic thingys for hands, knees, and feet: working on that

Lem leads again and the robot free climbs

[dbIII (701233)]

Odd coincidence. Just a week again I read "The Accident" by Stanislaw Lem which is about trying to track down a robot that has gone missing and has unexpectedly done a bit of rock climbing in it's spare time.

Print version

[Nullav (1053766)]

Here's the print version [idg.com.au] for those who don't want to scroll constantly because of the massive ad-walls.
Really, I don't mind ads, but use them tastefully.

-1 redundant

[conureman (748753)]

Wish I could think of something humorous like ALL OF Y'ALL. I am just very impressed by the concept. How heavy is this thing? (Secret? no pix.) I used to have fun as a youngster rubbing balloons on my hair, then sticking them to the ceiling. Who would have thought this could go so far?

WALL BOT VIDEO

[mattnyc99 (1008511)]

http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/technology_news/4264594.html [popularmechanics.com]

More like civilian applications

[Tyr_7BE (461429)]

Screw military applications - this means my roomba might be able to handle the stairs soon!

Exciting times :)

Military, military, military

[ornel (810244)]

It's true lots of great technologies have come out of military research, but it seems a very inefficient way of coming up with new stuff. If the US is going to have such a statist economy, wouldn't it be better to use all those billions on research that is not for world domination?

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[Hal_Porter (817932)]

But dude! Now if you're an evil enemy of the US and the US sends its robots to attack you, they will swarm over the walls, Aliens style, not just the floor.It's like a sci fi movie, but we are the aliens with all sorts of cool weapons. Goddamn I'm excited just thinking about it.

I remember in the run up to the Afghanistan war there were loads of stories on Fark.com about cool technologies which would be used by America to kill the terrorists. Someone suggested that there should Fascism tag for them. On Plast

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[The Evil Couch (621105)]

You might want to reread the summary.

The wall-climbing robots could be a boon for the US military, which could use them on reconnaissance or other missions in war zones, said Philip von Guggenberg, director of business development for SRI International, adding that the independent group has received some funding from DARPA, the technology research arm of the Pentagon.

Looks to me like they came up with the concept and then marketed it to the military in order to get more funding.

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[somersault (912633)]

As long as they are just walking, running and climbing then it doesn't matter too much. When they start coming back from the future and ripping your heart out with their bare hands, then you need to be worried.

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[Ramsés Morales (13327)]

Too bad they don't mention how much power is needed per pound.