Video Description
Paraswift is the first robot that can climb a vertical surface and deploy a paraglider for a safe return to earth. It demonstrates how robots are becoming increasingly versatile at moving around human environments.

Paraswift
Paraswift is a research project at the Autonomous Systems Lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich in collaboration with Disney Research. The robot employs a fast-moving impeller which is capable of generating a partial vacuum with an adhesion force of 40 Newtons. Read more.

Base-jumping robot throws itself off buildings
Source: NewScientist.com. Updated 13:59 08 September 2011 by Catherine de Lange

Adrenalin junkies, step aside: a new base-jumping robot can climb up buildings before deploying a paraglider to fly back down to earth. It is also equipped with an on-board video camera to film the jump.

The robot – named Paraswift – is a collaboration between Disney Research and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, and was initially built for entertainment purposes. But as the first compact robot that can both climb and fly, it has practical uses too, such as gathering aerial footage for 3D modelling systems. Read more.