For a while, researchers have had tools to stick onto a surface. One of the cooler ways, however, is to use a robot that utilizes the Bernoulli’s principle.
What Bernoulli’s principle states is simple: as a liquid moves faster, its pressure decreases. When used in the robot, air technically counts as a fluid, so if air is squirted out of the sides of a circular gripper fast enough, it creates a vacuum that is strong enough to grab things without actually touching them: a non-contact vacuum. This is especially useful with fragile materials such as glass, but previously it wasn’t as functional because the vacuum could not support a robot’s weight.
However, now, a new kind of robot has been develop that can support about five times the weight of the regular Bernoulli grippers. But this doesn’t require an increase in airflow or pressure. Instead, the geometry has been carefully designed to allow only a 25 ?m gap for air to push through. This forces the air to go through the gap at the speed of Mach 3, which is three times the speed of sound. And with faster airflow comes a stronger vacuum.
Many people have exciting new prospects for this non-contact adhesive robot, including industrial inspections.
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