Flexible Control and Coupling of Adhesion and Friction of Gecko Setal Array During Sliding

Gecko has remarkable ability to control its adhesion and friction during running to realize a swift climbing or running on vertical walls or upside down ceilings. This ability has received considerable interest of researchers. During the recent decade, significant progress has been made in understanding the mechanism and the biomimetic fabrication of gecko-inspired dry adhesives. While people generally desire a strong and reversible adhesion property, this article described the progress in the investigation of the properties of gecko hierarchical structures, and the corresponding theoretical understandings, and then presented our recent progresses on the flexible controlled adhesion and friction of gecko surface and biomimetic surfaces and a demonstration of a hybrid clamp to ascertain the mechanical property of control principles is also involved. Gecko-inspired adhesives with flexibly controlled adhesion and friction performances have been developed. Macroscopic sliding of those adhesive surfaces with anisotropic hierarchical microscopic structures in a desired direction could be carried out and engage or disengage a flexible control of strong adhesion and friction, and acquire an “intelligent” adhesion.