Arboreal robots R&D
Robots that work in trees, not on two legs on the ground. First a shape you can see, then what can touch the bark without ruining the tree, then locomotion that actually climbs. None of this is a working farm robot, and none of it is for sale.
These pages collect the prototypes as we build them.
First climbing shape
One of the first proofs of concept at DLAB, May 2024. Printed bioplastic, servos, firmware. Reduced mobility. You improve what you can see.
PLA tree gripper
Can the part that touches the tree be bioplastic? Printed PLA, hobby servos. Lab at DLAB, then a trunk at StartHub, June 2024.
Bioplastic trunk climber
Made to go up and down a trunk. Bioplastic grippers, June 2024. When the trunk branches, it cannot follow. Needs more mobility.
Printed gear transmission
3D-printed gears, brushed DC motor, potentiometer. Lab at DLAB, July 2024. A bench test of whether the transmission is usable on a robot.
Microspines for a tiny climber
Squirrel-claw bioresin microspines on a tiny platform. Paper box in the lab, then a VU campus branch, July 2024. Good grip, only certain sizes. Too small for harvest. Retired for Gibbon Bot.
What we are researching
- Contact without metal on bark — metal scars, breaks, and those wounds let in disease. Conventional plastic pollutes. Bioplastic is the test: a PLA gripper, and microspines in soy-oil resin next to PLA filament.
- Canopy locomotion — grip and motion through branches, not walking on the ground. An early trunk climber cannot switch onto branches. A tiny microspine platform gripped well but only on a certain branch size, and was too small to carry work. Gibbon Bot is the later architecture.
- Lightweight mechanics — so the soil is not compacted and the tree is not a casualty of the clamp. That includes printed gears as a motor transmission, tested on the bench before they go on a machine.
- Intended jobs — maintenance, harvest, hail nets, monitoring — if a machine can climb. Not there yet.
Work with us
Firmware, printed parts, a vision loop on a cheap camera: firmware, CAD, on-device AI. Email services@olivabot.com.