Static electricity can do much more than levitate a person’s hair with the help of a charged balloon. This scientific phenomenon, technically known as electroadhesion, can also enable a robotic gripper to easily handle material as fragile as an egg and as flimsy as soft fabric.
In 2015, Sunnyvale, CA-based Grabit Inc. developed such a gripper for its Stackit auto-layering robot system to help Nike significantly increase productivity. The gripper features a flat pad of electrodes that generate positive and negative charges, thereby creating an electric field that adheres to surfaces as diverse as leather, mesh and composite fibers.