Adhesion properties of carbon nanotube arrays for an adhesive foot of a space crawling robot

A new type of space crawling robot was proposed for spacecraft maintenance missions and a nanoscale microarray structure was designed as the robot foot structure. In this study, a carbon nanotube array structure was adopted as the adhered nanoscale microarray structure of the robot foot. A theoretical model of the carbon nanotube structure was established, and the influence of the structural parameters of the carbon nanotube array on its adhesion characteristics was analyzed. A force model of carbon nanotube arrays on different roughness surfaces and under different preloads was established using the discrete element software, EDEM. A simulation of the desorption process of the carbon nanotube array structure in the normal and tangential directions was conducted. The adhesion characteristics of the carbon nanotube structure were analyzed. On this basis, the carbon nanotube microarray structure was fabricated using chemical vapor deposition, and a force test system was established on the platform of a scanning electron microscope to test the adhesion force of the carbon nanotube array in a vacuum environment. The influence of preloading and roughness on the adhesion characteristics of the carbon nanotube array structure was analyzed.