14 DAY TRIAL // Building on nearly four decades of expertise in using sound waves to manipulate objects from a distance, researchers in Japan were recently able to develop an array of speakers that uses sound to move an object located inside the device in three dimensions, something that has never been achieved before.
The device was developed by researchers Yoichi Ochiai, Takayuki Hoshi and Jun Rekimoto, who hold appointments with the University of Tokyo, the Nagoya Institute of Technology, and the University of Tokyo and Sony CSL, respectively.
Until now, acoustic levitation was only used to manipulate very small particles, water droplets or small animals. Most of the time, just the effects of gravity were counterbalanced. The new study does this not just for sideways motions, but for up-and-down and front-to-back motions as well.
This type of levitation moves objects by suspending them inside its sound pressure nodes, as the video below will illustrate. The 3D motion was achieved by using a careful selection of speakers, rather than just one or two. The team says that this is just a work in progress, and that more achievements could soon follow.