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US 10,377,231 B2Granted
Magnet-assisted ball drive
AssigneeEcole Polytechnique Federale De Lausanne (Epfl)
InventorsAyberk Özgür, Séverin Lemaignan, Wafa Johal, Francesco Mondada, Pierre Dillenbourg
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention concerns a magnet-assisted ball drive. The drive comprises a ball and a drive element in contact with the ball. The drive element is arranged to be rotated around its axis of rotation to drive the ball. The ball and the drive element each comprise magnetic material such that at least one of the ball and the drive element comprises a magnet to generate a magnetic pulling force to pull the ball and the drive element against each other.
Claims18
A magnet-assisted ball drive, the drive comprising:
- a substantially spherical element, referred to as a ball, and comprising an outer surface;
- and
- a drive wheel in contact with the ball, the drive wheel being arranged to be rotated around an axis of rotation of the drive wheel to drive the ball,
- wherein the ball and the drive wheel each comprise magnetic material such that at least one of the ball and the drive wheel comprises a magnet to generate a magnetic pulling force to pull the ball and the drive wheel against each other, and wherein the drive wheel is located outside of the ball and is in contact with the outer surface of the ball for driving the ball.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.