Today, at the International Conference on Field and Service Robotics
here in Cambridge, MA, robotics professor and prolific inventor Shigeo Hirose,
from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, presented a grappling-hook system designed
to help robots get over difficult terrain.
Hirose says that he was inspired by Batman’s grappling hook and
the way that Spiderman stays in constant motion using a repetitive tether-and-swing
action.
Advertisement
After modeling several different designs, Hirose settled on a
pneumatic hook with a controlled launching winch and a braking spool to avoid
tangling the rope. Once launched, the hook rotates because of its center of
gravity and grips whatever’s beneath it.
This story is only available to subscribers.
Don’t settle for half the story.
Get paywall-free access to technology news for the here and now.
Hirose has tested prototypes on the wheeled Helios-VI robot and plans to let a robot use two or three of the grappling systems to work its
way up over rough terrain by continually launching. Take a look at the clip below
for the latest version of Hirose’s grappling hook.
During the conference lunch, I caught up with Hirose. He was
one of the first researchers to develop a robot modeled on a snake back in the 1970s.
This design has since inspired surgical snake-like robots and search-and-rescue snake robots that other groups are
developing today. Hirose told me he expects that such robots will be used
in the field within three years. He also gave the afternoon’s plenary talk on
his menagerie of walking, slithering, and climbing robots and on
plans for implementing these robots in military, rescue, construction, and space
settings.
