Mighty Micro-Robot Climber

Harvard's Robot Climber with Sticky Feet


Source:  Wyss Institute's Microrobot HAMR-E


HAMR-E on Duty for Jet Engine Safety Inspections
It's a tiny but mighty micro-robot named HAMR-E (Harvard Ambulatory Micro-Robot Electroadhesion).  It's been developed by researchers at Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. They've created a micro-robot with incredible climbing ability.  It has electroadhesive foot pads, origami ankle joints and an optimized gait to explore spaces in 3-D, vertically and upside down.

Gecko Inspired
Rolls Royce challenged the Wyss Institute to develop an army of micro-robots to inspect their Rolls Royce engines for commercial aircraft.  Commercial jet engines have 25,000 parts, many of which aren't accessible until you pull fully dismantle the engine.  That is very expensive and time-consuming.  Enter HAMR-E from Harvard.

Future for this Innovation
The potential is that an army of HAMR-E micro-robots could one day carry cameras and instruments to inspect small spaces on highly complicated machines like jet engines, generators, construction equipment and scientific instrumentation.  Most importantly this could save lives before equipment failures.  And also, cuts the cost of maintenance.  This robotic innovation has just been published in Science Robotics.  For more news stories on innovation, go to amazon.com/author/ekane

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