Automatic Page-Turning Mechanism with Near-Field Electroadhesive Force for Linearly Correctable Imaging

Recently, demand for digitization of books has increased in tandem with the spread of portable devices for electronic books. However, in a number of invented book-scanning devices, pages are turned manually by users, or pricey three-dimensional cameras are needed for image correction. Our automatic page-turning mechanism employs near-field electroadhesive force to turn a single page. As the near-field electroadhesive force on the closest sheet of paper is far stronger than that on the second, only a single sheet of paper can be lifted. Using Fourier series expansion, we prove that regardless of the geometrical configuration of electrodes, the force ratio on the closest to the second is dominantly controlled by the period of the configuration. Based on this, a novel electrode configuration is designed aiming to give higher force ratio than the conventional interdigital patterns. The advantage of our mechanism in image processing is that perspective correction is compatible with our mechanism, hence not requiring devices for acquiring 3-D information to reconstruct images. Our automatic page-turning mechanism with a fair success rate and the reduced number of components shows that it is a promising method for automatic low-cost book-scanning devices