Use Electric Charges to Carry Objects
A robot startup called GrabIt is creating mechanical “hands” that generate static electricity strong enough to pick up and move boxes, crates and other items. The “hands” contain powered electrodes, found either on the surface of the gripper or on tentacle-like fingers, which produce and sustain strong attractive forces between almost any object. Demos have shown items ranging from cans and fruits to iPads, boxes, and sheets of glass, fabric, or silicon. The powered electrodes that GrabIt uses are the key to the flexible, small and delicate grippers – they evenly disperse force across a large surface area.
