'Flying carpet' in the lab

A small plastic carpet made of conductive plastic has 'flown' in the laboratory of Princeton University (USA).

A 10 cm thick transparent plastic is operated by wavy energy, which means the waves drive the air bags from front to back. This prototype carries a speed of about 1 cm / sec. Improvements to this design can increase flight speeds up to 1 meter per second.

According to the BBC , creator of this device, graduate student Dr. Noah Jafferis, said he was inspired by a mathematical dissertation by Harvard University professor Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan that he read right after the start of the PhD course. Princeton. Jafferis does not use fashionable printed circuit boards with nano ink, but rather the 'one by one night' approach to the technology of the 21st century.

Professor James Sturm, who chaired the Jafferis research team, admitted that the project looked crazy at the time. 'The trick is to control the behavior of the plastic as it is deformed at high frequencies. Without the ability to accurately predict how it bends, we can not load the proper currents to make the thrust effective. "

The team spent two years attempting to mount the sensor on every part of the sheet to improve its ability to fly through a series of complex processes. But once they mastered the technology, the electrical wave they created matched the theoretical one, the overwhelming movements that gave life to the small plastic sheet.

In his description of the work, Jafferis and his colleagues cautioned for the word 'flying' in quotation marks, because their equipment was more like a hovercraft than an airplane. ' It must be kept close to the ground, because the air is' stuck' between the plastic and the ground. When the electrical waves move along the bottom of the plastic sheet, it basically pumps the air back ' . That is the power push for the device.

Jafferis says the prototype device is limited because of the small wires attached to it with heavy batteries, so it can only move a few centimeters. However, the specialist is improving its solar-powered equipment so that it can fly more freely over larger distances.

According to the report, the applications of the invention may include a self-propelled vehicle on Mars.