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."

Comments

Electroadhesive robots

[$RANDOMLUSER]

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

Re:Electroadhesive robots

[Frosty Piss]

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.

Re:Electroadhesive robots

[TubeSteak]

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.

Gecko feet

[DigiShaman]

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.

Add window washers to the list

[NotQuiteReal]

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

Roland? Is that you?

[Frosty Piss]

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

Sorry, I'll shut up now...

Re:Every single story...

[The Evil Couch]

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.

They need fundind

[DrYak]

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.

Military, military, military

[ornel]

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?