Technology

First line, "Contactless manipulation method could be used in industries such as robotics and manufacturing." If you want more detail then this is quoting most of the article: "“Contactless manipulation is a hot area of research in optics and electromagnetism, but this research proposes another method for contactless actuation that offers advantages that other methods may not have,” said Matthew Stein, first author on the paper and a graduate student in the University of Minnesota Department of Mechanical Engineering. “Also, outside of the applications that this research enables, expanding upon our knowledge of physics is just a very exciting thing to do in general!”

While this study is more a demonstration of the concept, the researchers aim to test out higher frequencies of waves and different materials and object sizes in the future.

“In a lot of fields of science and engineering, robotics especially, there is the need to move things, to transfer a signal into some sort of controlled motion,” Ilic said. “Often this is done through physical tethers or having to carry some source of energy to be able to perform a task. I think we’re charting in a new direction here and showing that without physical contact, we can move objects, and that motion can be controlled simply by programming what is on the surface of that object. This gives us a new mechanism to contactlessly actuate things.”"