A Soft, Centimeter‐Scaled, Thin‐Cable‐Crawling Robot for Narrow Space Inspection

Abstract

Cable-Crawling Robots In article number 2300828, Bo Li, Guimin Chen, and co-workers report a centimeter-scaled cable-crawling robot for thin cables by utilizing multilayered dielectric elastomer actuators. The miniaturized robot (2.1 g, 43 mm long) can quickly crawl on extremely thin cables with different orientations, transport objects, and locomote across the water–air interface. Benefit from the excellent locomotion performance, the robot can be applied to perform inspection and maintenance tasks along pre-built cables inside some equipment with narrow, confined internal spaces, such as airplane wings. This novel centimeter-scaled robot offers a potential platform solution for operating in hazardous or difficult-to-access spaces.