Robot skin with integrated micro rubber suction cups adhering rough surfaces

Abstract

The aim of this research is to realize a functional adhesive robot skin with integrated micro suction cups, which has two new functions involving adaptive adhesion to rough/curved surfaces and anisotropic adhesion. This skin can be applied to various robot mechanisms such as robot hands, wall climbing robot feet and so on. In this report, the robot skins have been successfully developed to realize the higher adaptive adhesion by modifying materials and integration density of suction cups. The suction cups on 10mm × 10mm area realize the adhesion to surfaces with 145μm RMS roughness and with gap of 900μm in height.