The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $421,935 Project Grant under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to enable insect-scale legged robots capable of climbing on inverted surfaces and grasping irregularly shaped objects. The research aims to develop new adhesion mechanisms, climbing gaits, and grasping modalities to overcome limitations of current small-scale robots. Key focus areas include analytical modeling of adhesion and lubrication, implementing feedback control for inverted and vertical climbing, and demonstrating robust grasping and transport of irregular objects. The project will result in an insect-scale quadrupedal robot that can climb on inverted surfaces for over 10 meters and grasp, rotate, and release irregular objects using a compliant gripper leveraging capillary forces. No sub-awards are planned for this grant, which has an ultimate completion date of December 31, 2027.
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