Adaptive and Robust Switchable Adhesion System: Bio-Inspired Synergistic Integration from Octopuses and Geckos

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Existing climbing robots achieve stable movements on limited surface types. However, adapting a single robot design to various surface shapes remains a substantial challenge. Based on the van der Waals (vdW) force-mediated adhesion mechanism of a gecko foot and negative pressure from octopus suckers, this study introduces a biomimetic integration strategy for designing and fabricating a pneumatically actuated switchable adhesion system (SAS). The SAS includes an adhesive material responsible for generating vdW forces and a suction cup with a membrane structure that enables a vacuum suction force. Owing to nonlinear superposition effects, this SAS exhibited a 56.4% higher adhesion force than the algebraic superposition of the vdW and vacuum suction forces. Moreover, the SAS offers a quick switch between adhesion and detachment through pneumatic modulation, achieving a synergistic balance between adaptability, robustness, and load-bearing efficiency. Equipped with this SAS, we developed a pneumo-electrically actuated quadruped-climbing robot that can climb planes with different tilt angles and surfaces with different curvatures.