Super-Strong Robot Pulls 100x Its Own Weight, Even Climbs Up Walls

If I could carry 100 times my own weight, I'd never need to twist the arms of all my friends to help me move. Until I gain super-strength, I'll have to settle for dreaming of borrowing these tenacious robots. A team of mechanical engineers from California's Standford University developed a collection of tiny robots which can give Marvel's Ant-Man a run for his money. Don't let the size of these tiny robots deceive you. These 'bots are incredibly strong; they can pull 100 times their own weight.

The ability to climb walls while supporting heavy weight was inspired by nature. Geckos unknowingly use van der Waals weak atomic forces as their feet grip walls. Instead of relying on a sticky adhesive that would make it difficult to pick up each limb and take as step, each robot's feet are covered in tiny rubber spikes which grip surfaces in a similar manner as the gecko. The rubber spikes flex under pressure and easily release to move forward.

The team designed the robots to move like an inchworm, so one adhesive pad stays in place while another inches forward along the surface.

In the video, you'll see a 9 gram robot carrying pulling a kilogram of weight. An even tinier robot weighs in at only 20 milligrams but can carry 500 milligrams (a tiny paper clip). This robot is so small that it was engineered under a microscope. The most astounding of all of super-strong robots is the μTug which can pull almost 24 kg, that's 2000 times its own weight!

Source: New Scientist