Gecko Feet and Antigravity

A number of people have e-mailed about the gecko page. It's a pretty interested article about a project to construct wall-climbing robots, and the science involved.

Comments

Space-based implications

[Remus Shepherd]

Because of the 'electrostatic' adhesion of their feet, Geckos do have traction in low gravity. They also have traction in total vacuum (apparently someone put a gecko in a vacuum to test this. :/ ). A geckobot might be ideal for extra-vehicular work in orbit.

Then again...if the geckos' feet are electrostatic in nature, a charge applied to the surface they're walking on might cause them to repel away from the surface. So they wouldn't be much use in solar storms like the one we're currently having...

Re:engineering based on nature..

[Tassach]

Redundant systems are abhored by most engineers and programmers

Where did you study engineering and/or programming? Every engineer (hardware or software) I know understands that the proper use of redundancy is a Good Thing. What good engineers abhor is inefficiency -- not at all the same thing. Redundancy can be inefficient, but it is not necessarily so.

Intelligently applied, redundancy is the hallmark of reliable and survivable systems. For example, in modern aircraft design, every critical system is multiply redundant. A good file server has many redundant components (dual power supplies, UPS, dual HD controllers, RAID system, etc). Sometimes you have to sacrifice reliability to optimize some other critical design criteria (ie: cost, weight, development time, etc)
"The axiom 'An honest man has nothing to fear from the police'

BBC article, gecko feet and Van der Walls forces

[Kurt Gray]

Gecko feet stick using Van der Walls forces (weak electrical forces at the molecular level) and due credit to kuro5hin for posting this earlier today.

NPR: All things considered piece

[Shin Dig]

There was actually a piece on All Things Considered last night on this as well. It can be found in real media format here.

Article from MSNBC

[narsiman]

Check out msnbc's article on similar lines.

The big question is

[JamesSharman]

Would a robot using gecko insired technology be running S.u.S.E. ?

How about one that runs on slugs?

[Ron Harwood]

Slugbot does.

Gotta love the "Robot Swarms" they're working on..

[GoodPint]

My favourite project of theirs has to be the software they're working on to control robotic "swarms". The robots communicate using infrared, and the system is designed to tolerate loss of individual units while being very scaleable (10k units).

It reminds me a lot of Kevin Kelly's (ex-editor of Wired) book "Out of Control :The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World" which discusses the impact biology will probably have on technology.

GoodPint

Its called a cat.

[BoLean]

Only they aren't reprogrammable

Gecko traction

[mindstrm]

Gecko's traction is not based on gravity, or pressure, and is only kind of related to friction (I'm saying this because I cant' remember exactly what forces are involved in friction).

Scientists recently figured out that geckos have hairs on their feet (billions on each gecko) that they form a very complete contact with the surface they are standing on at a molecular level. Your hand pressing on a piece of glass would have millions of times less actual molecular contact.
It is this intermolecular force that keeps geckos attached to the wall or roof. I'm sorry I can't remember the exact term for this force... vander something... or something like that.. it's an attraction between molecules (not electrical)

I believe friction comes from this force as well. It is not so much the rough surface that causes friction, but the rough surface causes more extreme close molecular contact during motion...