Festo SupraSensor Concept Demonstrates Potential of Contactless Weighing

February 19, 2019

Maintaining ultra-clean, germ-free conditions is critically important for industrial production, particularly in the medical and pharmaceutical industry. Keeping surfaces in clean rooms germ-free is a constant battle. Even with the greatest vigilance, any equipment like test tubes, Petri dishes and scales introduced from the outside is a potential source of contamination. If they are put down on the work surface, crawl spaces form underneath them, which are difficult to keep clean. That’s a risk that a new concept for contactless weighing and precise measurement being developed by Festo eliminates.

Festo’s SupraSensor concept uses magnetic-field-based hovering technology to demonstrate how contactless scales would work. Take for example the following demonstrator application for a safety workbench used in biological or chemical analysis. A cryostat with a superconductor is permanently fixed on a set of precision scales beneath the work surface. A weighing pan with a permanent magnet on its underside hovers above the work surface. It never touches it, but is coupled without contact to the superconductor and hence also to the scales. This is made possible by the special property of superconductors, which can make magnets hover at a defined gap when they are cooled to a certain temperature.

Easy to clean laboratory environment

In the laboratory environment, the workstation surface remains without disruptive elements on the surface and can be easily cleaned. If it is not needed, the weighing pan can be removed and the whole working space is available for use. Beyond pure measuring and weighing, the technology offers many other possibilities such as analytical density and viscosity determination, precise dispensing or monitoring reactive or biological processes.

At the same time, the application with superconductors is very robust and stable both in terms of space and time: the materially intrinsic hovering function requires no control technology and remains in place for a long period even if the power supply is interrupted.

At the Hannover Messe 2019 trade fair in the first week April, Festo will be showcasing two additional applications using superconductor technology: with the SupraMultitool, several functions can be carried out with only one superconductor element; and SupraDrive 2.0 demonstrates smooth, linear transport of objects – with precise positioning. In both exhibits, superconductivity allows low-energy movement in suspension and facilitates cleaning.

In the future, many manufactured products will move quietly and cleanly through the production shops, with low energy consumption and without contact using superconductivity.

Contact-free production of the future

“The special characteristics of superconductors open up great potential wherever contact-free storage or handling is required. Automation can thus make inroads into areas of application that until now have been regarded as not – or only barely – accessible to automation,” said Georg Berner, Head of Strategic Corporate Development, Group Holding Festo and Project Coordinator for the SupraMotion concepts. “Our customers, and their customers in turn, will benefit from this paradigm shift in automation. Festo has been investigating and developing this technology for more than 10 years. We are currently working with customers on trendsetting pilot projects.”

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