Slashdot Mirror
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."
Never mind the military uses, how about using them for construction purposes?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Why not have have the robots bitten by a genetically engineered spider?
Fight Spammers!
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.
Life is not for the lazy.
Of people who's job can be replaced by a robot.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
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 Plastic someone posted a funny Starship Troopers style dialog
Reporter: Some people say that the US has provoked this war by meddling in the Middle East.
Soldier: I'm from New York and I say KILL 'EM ALL!
So, cool technology but I'm ambivalent. Mind you as an English guy it seems better that the US has all the cool killing machines than any conceivable competitor except maybe the UK.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Sorry, I'll shut up now...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Is anyone else sick of reading about every new technology that seems to come out the military finds "uses" for it. Makes me think about their mindset when they look at every innovation and think "this would be really good for killing people".
Goddamn sociopaths.
I for one, Welcome out new electro-stick spybot war machine overlords. ...jokes yet?
Pretty cool, but frightening.
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.
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
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
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
Tomato wedge sperm darts that are Republican.
... now we'll have robots lording over us from random vertical surfaces?
I, for one, am not sure I welcome the idea.
yes, we have no bananas
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.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
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
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.
...just get your robot to use vista for a few days, and it'll be climbing the walls without any training.
You can't mean to suggest that the ENEMY aren't all EVIL and wanting to kill us? But but but that would mean the government is using fear to control us. Clearly such a suggestion impugnes the good character of politicians.
Requiem for the American Dream
Soon the robots will overtake us all. It is only a matter of time. First they walk, then they run, then they climb walls.
Looks like it might have trouble with conducting surfaces. If you short those clamps together all that induced charge/voltage would likely discharge, sending the robot tumbling to the ground and maybe even blowing its power supply. Any wet wall, or even just a wall with a band of conducting material would still serve as a barrier to the robot.
Just like the obviously outrageous "this will eradicate cancer !" claims that you see each time some bio-medical research lab publishes some obscure discovery.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The fools! How will we escape the Robotic Overlords now?
Here's the print version 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.
I just read Slashdot for the articles.
the 1 trillion spent on the iraq war, if spent on civilian projects, would have generated far, far, far more advances, contributed far more to industry, and benefited society much more.
yeaah the military generated a lot of cool stuff, but that is because the military uses up so much money that other science projects get starved, including nasa, the department of energy, the national institutes of health, the cdc, fermilab, etc etc etc.
giving a certain amount of money to the militray does not necessarily generate discovery or advancement faster than giving that money to civilian projects.
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?
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/technology_news/4264594.html
"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)...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Screw military applications - this means my roomba might be able to handle the stairs soon!
:)
Exciting times
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?
... as per http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/29/1254259 and you're telling me we can have bionic, monkey-powered, wall climbing robots? Where do I sign up?
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.
Infuriate left and right
I hate posts that link to articles with no pictures!
http://www.sri.com/rd/electroadhesion.html
Remember Tom Selleck in Runaway back in 1984! Those robots were creepy - but not as creepy as Gene Simmons or as cool as the homing bullets!
mu
And why not have have the robots bitten by a genetically engineered spider?
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 close to home, although Arpanet was started by the US military as a way for a network to survive a massive attack for the fear inspiring enemy du jour (the godless communist), most of it rising in popularity to what is the web today can be traced to the work of the CERN (a mainly pacific organisation) and development that happened during the 90s, hardly a time with "BIG Scary Enemies". Even more characteristic, now that governments have found a new scarecrow to frighten their population, you start seeing regular complaints on
So yes, fears has been a good way to whore for money on a few select projects. But real creativity needs collaboration between human beings, which isn't as easy at times when everybody hates each other (or at least is suspicious of each other).
Against any form of adversity humans are creative, whenever there's a hard problem (be it getting more food or women as you suggest or simply trying to survive after a catastrophe as reported during Katrina on
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Anyone heard of Alfred Nobel?
Calvin:Do you believe in the devil? Hobbes:I'm not sure man needs the help.
Too bad they don't mention how much power is needed per pound.
He was actually quite pro Muslim. He saved the Bosnians from genocide and tried to get the Israelis to sign a peace treaty with Arafat. Arafat rejected it, admittedly. But I don't think the US was anti Muslim at all before 9/11, anymore than it was anti Japanese before Pearl Harbor. I hope Osama & crew are happy with the devastation now wrought across the region. Either it was what they wanted in the first place, or they drastically underestimated what we would do. I strongly suspect the second. Al Qaeda want to re establish the Caliphate in the Middle East, Israel (after they get rid of all the Jews) and Spain. And Chechnya and Xinjang. To do that they think they just need to defeat the US. Since they think they defeated the Russians in Afghanistan, they obviously thought the US would be no problem.
This a completely crazy world view of course, opposed by the US, the Russians, the Chinese, most Arab states, Israel, Spain, France, Iran and Syria. Iran and Syria back Shiite fundamentalists like Hezbollah, not Sunni ones like Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda pissed them off by declaring Shiites apostates and killing some Iranian diplomats in Afghanistan. Even without the US, this is a powerful group able to thwart their ambitions.
And the Russians were actually defeated by the Northern Alliance, not Al Qaeda. Actually the Northern Alliance was backed by the same grand coalition which now opposes them and help to topple the Taliban.
But I think before they attacked the US, that was what they believed.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;