A Technology Review article has an interesting description of the latest improvements to wall climbing robots developed by researchers at CMU. The new robots can traverse smooth walls and ceilings at rates up to six centimeters per second using wheel like-legs. Each leg is tipped with a foot pad covered in a microfabricated fiber material that emulates the atomic van der Waals bonding forces used by geckos. Likely applications include robots that could walk around on the hulls of spacecraft for repair operations.