Some may have called it “creepy,” but tiny fabric-climbing robot Clothbot wants nothing more than to explore the surface of your jeans or jacket. The robot, presented at last week’s IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Minnesota, is designed to grip cloth between a pair of wheels and use the resulting wrinkle to roll its way up any piece of relatively loose and rough-textured clothing. Judging by the video, it has no trouble with cotton jackets or jeans; it can even turn by shifting its wheels and rebalance using an omnidirectional tail.
Clothbot robot grips and climbs the wrinkles on your clothes
Clothbot, designed by a group of Chinese researchers and presented at an IEEE robotics conference, climbs clothes by gripping wrinkles between a pair of wheels.
Clothbot, designed by a group of Chinese researchers and presented at an IEEE robotics conference, climbs clothes by gripping wrinkles between a pair of wheels.
is a senior tech and policy editor focused on online platforms and free expression. Adi has covered virtual and augmented reality, the history of computing, and more for The Verge since 2011.
Clothbot was designed by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. It’s basically a proof of concept, but the developers suggest that it could be used as a toy, a method of “body inspection,” or a literally mobile phone that climbs around on your shoulder while you talk.
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