Disney's VertiGo Robot Can Climb Walls

Alex Honnold and Chris Sharma better watch out. The rock climbing legends might soon face some new competition ... from a robot.

Meet VertiGo, a new robot that can actually climb walls. Developed by Disney Research Zurich in collaboration with ETH University, VertiGo might not yet be ready to take on Yosemite's Triple Crown any time soon, but it is capable of its own gravity-defying stunt: transitioning from the ground to the wall.
Riding on four wheels, the robot has two tiltable propellers that provide thrust onto the wall, allowing it to move on a vertical surface — even over challenges such as masonry — "quickly and with agility," the companies said. Check it out for yourself in the video below.

"The choice of two propellers rather than one enables a floor-to-wall transition — thrust is applied both towards the wall using the rear propeller, and in an upward direction using the front propeller, resulting in a flip onto the wall," Disney and ETH said.

As for the technical details of how they got this to work, the team said one of the biggest challenges was maximizing the ratio between thrust output and vehicle weight. It has a carbon fiber baseplate to minimize weight, while its wheels and suspension system are made of 3D-printed parts and carbon rods. It also has two thrusters, which are mounted using a two-ringed "cardan suspension," like a compass.

"Integrated servomotors allow the inner and outer ring to be moved independently from one another," the companies said. "This supports the generation of all the forces required to drive on the floor, on walls and theoretically even on the ceiling."

The VertiGo can be controlled by a human operator just like a remote control car. There's no word as to what the companies plan to do with this new technology, but they say it "extends the ability of robots to travel through urban and indoor environments."