ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 28 -- United States Patent no. 12,696,723, issued on July 28, was assigned to Robert Bosch GmbH (Stuttgart, Germany).
"Contactless conveyor device" was invented by Stefan Teusch (Reutlingen, Germany), Heike Raatz (Stuttgart, Germany) and Joachim Frangen (Heilbronn, Germany).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The disclosure relates to a conveyor device which is designed to simultaneously convey a plurality of payloads, in particular wafers. Each payload is paired with a transport body (mover) which can be moved and positioned in a floating manner over a surface of a stator, and the transport body is moved and positioned preferably with respect to all six degrees of freedom. Th...