Utah academics tackle space debris with magnets

摘要

UNIVERSITY OF Utah mechanical engineering professor Jake J Abbott is leading a team of researchers that has discovered a method to manipulate orbiting debris with spinning magnets. With this technology, robots could one day gently manoeuvre the scrap to a decaying orbit or further out into space without actually touching it, or else repair malfunctioning objects to extend their life. Their research is detailed in the paper Dexterous magnetic manipulation of conductive non-magnetic objects', published in the science journal Nature. The co-authors include University of Utah graduate students Lan Pham, Griffin Tabor and Ashkan Pourkand, former graduate student Jacob L B Aman and School of Computing associate professor Tucker Hermans.