Wall-Climbing Robots

We have scorpions here that can climb damn near anything that's rough enough. You might wish to study the insect/arachnid world and see how they're equipped for this kind of thing. (From the right perspective you can think of insects as being nature's Little Machines. They have a lot to teach us. If I wanted to know how to build a robot that climbed rough walls, that's what I'd study first).

We have centroides vittatus on our property. By the hundreds if not thousands. One of them kindly offered to wash my dishes one night. You can see pix of him here.

These buggers really stick to whatever they're walking on. They're almost impossible to pry out of grass, even when they're dead. I suspect little hooks on their feet or something like that.

Suction cups? Nah. Not unless you wanted to paint really smooth surfaces. For advice on that I'd go ask a tree frog.

Go to Youtube and search for window washing robot.

I work in hydraulics/pneumatics/motion control. We carry a line called Schmalz, who manufacture various kinds of "suction cups" which will work for virtually any surface, some even will lift objects and hold them in mid-air without ever touching them (semiconductor manufacturing for instance).

We just designed a packaging system which is capable of lifting empty wooden pallets using "suction" it doesn't matter the condition of the pallets, or the quality of the surface. If you can hook up a pressurised air feed line to your Bot, we could make it walk on the ceiling. just a thought, "suction cups" have come a long way from the little rubber things we played with as kids.

I'd say take a look at this which is our best imitation of how geckos climb. Sticky but microscopic shag carpet is what it is. When under shear the sides of the fibers touch the surface and hold on. When there's no shear force the tips of the fibers touch and have much less holding power.

Here's a video. Looks like clear scotch tape. It peels easily off the surface when not loaded but once loaded was able to hold quite significant amounts per square inch of contact.

While pretending to be spiderman will likely get someone killed a robot can be programmed to unload one foot at a time in order to precisely move one foot before continuing on along with it's motion.

The stick, shear, unload, peel sequence might even be applicable to the surface of a wheel.

[edit] changed first hyperlink...

I know this will be way more than you could afford, but go here http://www.bostondynamics.com/content/sec.php?section=RiSE and download the video to see a really cool wall climbing robot. Also while you are at it, check out the other robots. Real cool stuff.

Good luck.

...or you could do what would benefit a "student" most -- after your preliminary "research", try to come up with a novel way of doing what you want. Innovation is the hallmark of good engineering.

Nothing new, really - except perhaps the application.

Hard to believe someone isn't already painting buildings with one;

this link should get you on your way, though.

http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20831/?a=f