Mimicking Gecko Grippers

Gecko feet grippers on glass  (credit: Wiki-commons)

For milinnea, evolution has tailored adaptations to environment conditions everywhere on Earth. The natural selection-driven design outcomes are staggering in their diversity. Contemporary engineers are now trying to adopt some of the most successful results by applying bio-mimicry as design guides. Resulting designs offer major applications and product improvements in research and commercial uses.

Investigators at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena are looking closely at the feet of geckos. These lizards have the ability to climb upside down and across any surface, due to physical structures on their padded feet. The JPL scientists and engineers are working to tailor robots with their Gecko Grippers so they can crawl over difficult terraines on Mars or anywhere else they may be deployed. The Lab calls this 'out-of-the-box' approach to design Crazy Engineering but it is very intelligent as well. WHB

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