Paraswift is a robot that can climb vertical surfaces with ease. Here you can see the robot motoring up the side of a building with a parachute packed on it’s back for use on the way down. The team that built the robot is calling it a base jumper, but after seeing them catch the falling robot in a net we’d say it’s still a bit too fragile to make that claim.
The parachute isn’t the only way for this guy to get down after a long climb. As you can see in the video after the break, it has no trouble driving in any direction on a wall. Like other wall-climbers the Paraswift is using air to stick to the surface. A vortex of air, similar to a tornado, generates a large amount of negative pressure, sucking the body of the robot to the surface it is climbing. I you’re the one who traded a good portion of your life to spend building the Paraswift we’re guessing you added the parachute to hedge your bets against a power failure.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb2lZ5d8B1c&w=470]
[via Reddit]
Looks pretty cool, but from the video i’m going to say that it can’t go from ground to wall, has to be attached to the wall directly?
That’s what I was thinking, it could be a very versatile robot if it had a camera and could drive across a parking lot, up 50 stories, in a up the wall onto the desk, look at whatever it needs to see, then back out the window back down the wall and home again.
@anybodysguess
Why not just use a flying vehicle for that application?
@ mark g
SCIENCE!
Dear HaD:
Love you, but http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe
Narf ( @mark g )
I can see some use for this robot. Say you’re at an event and want to get some decent footage for one reason or another (news, youtube, etc.) you can use this robot with a mounted camera and get some of the best footage around from a distance.
So close! The colors and form factor reminded me of the Bombchus from Zelda… Not quite.
Cool robot! Will it also go upside-down?
woah! add fly wings and eyes and scare the hell out of some poor old lady….. GIGANTIC FLY OH NO! RUN! aaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! ROFL love this
Think about it differently – it’s not creating a low pressure zone that’s sucking it to the wall; it’s merely allowing the atmosphere to push it against the wall more easily.
Alternately – your vacuum does not suck items up, it merely creates a circumstance that allows the atmosphere to push items through the carpet into the vacuum.
Just come out, and say it. Mike was using some highfalutin speech in his writeup there. Not knowing how deep it wasn’t going to get, I was beginning to wish I still had chest waders.
This is a pretty cool robot. I guess the next step would be to make the parachute functional using the very same radio transmitter.
Make it jump of the wall, or simply disengage the suction the helps it cling to the wall. Then execute the parachute as it descends. Cool stuff!
How long before DARPA get their hands on this and puts a gun on it.Imagine climbs wall and goes into office and waits, bang. And best of all it can leave afterwards. We’re all doomed I say dooooooomed
Cool bot though with a lot of peaceful applications.
DARPA won’t bother. Quadcopters can already get through half-open windows.
Besides being wall-roomba how is that project useful? it’s cool I must say, but isn’t energy/weight requirements almost the same as in flying and less versatile?
I can see this used by firemen (with a FLIR camera/etc. mounted on an arm) to get a good look inside buildings/break windows/communicate/etc.
Unlike a UAV/etc., you could pretty much ignore weather conditions.
This robot + drill + bolt anchors + hook = permanent nest.
Strap a spray can to it and you can do your graffiti tag in those hard to reach places!!
That construction worker didn’t even blink at the robot sticking to the wall. I wonder what was going through his head.
It seems this project was funded by Disney. I wonder what they plan to do with this tech.