A flexible spiny structure featuring two anchoring points for enhancing the mobility of wall-climbing robots on rough surfaces

摘要

Inspired by the mechanisms of some insects which are capable of climbing and moving freely on various vertical rough surfaces with their claws and accessory components, we presented a new design of a flexible spiny structure called DNspine (a spine with double needles) featuring two anchoring points to enhance the mobility of wall-climbing robots (WCR). Each flexible spine consists of two separate suspension systems so that the near subspines in the flexible spiny structure will not interface with each other. The two-anchoring point design increases the contact area of spiny array to achieve a better attachment for WCRs. The single DNspine and its array were fabricated via fast prototyping. A customized setup using displacement-control method was carried out to characterize the contact performance of the single DNspine as well as its DNspine array. Their adhesion forces were measured on a sandpaper surface. The results show that both the DNspine and the DNspine array are able to increase the spine adhesion significantly compared with a single flexible spine and its array with only one anchoring point on rough surfaces.