ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,257,695, issued on March 25, was assigned to The Boeing Co. (Arlington, Va.).
"Pick-and-place manufacturing system and method" was invented by Phillip John Crothers (Hampton East, Australia) and Martin Alexander Szarski (Brighton East, Australia).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A manufacturing system includes a stator base, a plurality of movers, one or more end effectors, and a controller. The stator base has a planar stator surface covering an array of electrical coils configured to generate an electromagnetic field. The movers each contain multiple permanent magnets configured to cause the movers to levitate and move relative to the st...