With three current exhibits on 'SupraMotion', Festo is expanding the range of storage and movement forms shown so far. Superconductors are materials that can "freeze" the field of a permanent magnet at a defined distance below a certain temperature, allowing it to float. The resulting gap remains stable in any spatial position. In this way, objects can be stored contactlessly without control technology and moved with little energy input.
With 'SupraJunction', the company demonstrates the contactless transportation of objects across closed surfaces and through airlocks. Two carrier plates hover above the superconductors thanks to magnetic rails attached to their underside. They transport small glass containers on a circular path by transferring them from one superconductor element on a transport system to the next element on another handling system.
With the 'SupraGripper', two grippers, each with three fingers, float freely above two crescent-shaped plates. This technology could be used, for example, to grip and transport objects through a partition or in enclosed spaces, which is ideal for clean rooms or for working in gases, vacuums or liquids.
'SupraTube' shows how a movement in a tube can be controlled from the outside without reaching through. A round cryostat with superconductors is attached to the outside of both ends of a closed glass tube filled with liquid. Inside the vertical tube is a magnetic puck, which is pinned to both cryostats with a floating distance of about 5 mm and hangs under the upper cryostat at the beginning. A magnetic ring around the cryostats is set in rotation with the aid of a stepper motor, which transmits the rotation to the floating magnet. This is repelled from the cryostat with an electrical impulse and drifts downwards in a gyroscopic motion. At the lower end, it is caught and centered again by the superconductor in the other cryostat.