Compliance for enhanced electroadhesion: Designing kirigami patterns for local conformation on rough surfaces

We aim to improve the adhesion capabilities of electroadhesive pads on rough surfaces by using geometry-driven compliance to increase effective contact area. We present a kirigami-based approach for enhancing compliance through an exploration of geometric features cut into an adhesive disk. We experimentally test a range of geometries, comparing shear adhesion strength to understand structure–function relationships in our chosen parameter space. Our findings indicate that introducing cuts to form serpentine paths in a disk results in longer effective lengths and enhanced compliance, thus requiring less energy to deform into a rough surface. Leveraging this insight and associated scaling analysis, we conclude that serpentine-like features arranged in a radially symmetric wedge configuration achieve high levels of adhesion, even on rough surfaces, enabling robust adhesion relative to featureless electroadhesive disks.