Abstract
This paper describes adhesive characteristics of foot pads for insect-inspired wall-climbing robots. Ants can walk on the smooth vertical surfaces using an adhesive organ and secreted viscous fluid. We fabricated three kinds of adhesive pads inspired by the adhesive organ of ants, a CFRP pad, a sponge and a CFRP pad with a water supplying mechanism. Pure water were provided to the pads, and normal and tangential adhesive forces between the pad and a glass surface were measured. The experimental results show that the hydrophilization treated glass pad generates higher adhesive force than the untreated pad, and the pad with water supply mechanism generates long-lasting adhesive force.
