Gravity‐independent rock‐climbing robot and a sample acquisition tool with microspine grippers

NASA JPL researchers present a 250 mm diameter omni-directional anchor that uses an array of claws with suspension flexures, called microspines, designed to grip rocks on the surfaces of asteroids and comets and to grip the cliff faces and lava tubes of Mars. Part of the paper: A. Parness, M. Frost, N. Thatte, J.P. King: Gravity-independent mobility and drilling on natural rock using microspines, Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Robot. Autom. (ICRA), St. Paul (2012), pp. 3437-3442.