Robotic wall-climbers: From rescue missions to kid's toys

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Speaker: I'm Harsha Prahlad. I'm a senior research engineer at SRI International. And I'm working on smart material technologies including wall-climbing robots.

Music Generally my job is basically to invent things. I always knew I wanted to be involved in technology, and things that are at the intersection of multiple technologies really intrigue me, so I'm working right now on the intersection of material signs and electrical engineering. And what attracted me towards engineering is the ability to create something that didn't exist, conceptualize, and then build it and show it in the real world. Today, I'm going to show you a demo of a simple wall-climbing robot that we built that uses this technology called electro-adhesion and climbs on all kinds of walls in a versatile manner. And it's something we developed here from conceptual stages. And the idea is similar to taking a balloon and rubbing it on your hair and sticking it to the wall. So it's static electricity, except that we carry a power supply with us on the robot, and that sticks to the wall because the wall develops opposite charges as the ones that the robot uses. The applications range from toys to surveillance robots to inspection robots for structures that are dangerous or difficult to get into, like nuclear plants. So there's a wide range of applications for the robots. This technology would hold up things on the wall, like your plasma screens, your picture frames, your banners, and your kids would be playing with toys made out of these -- these materials.

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