ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 4 -- United States Patent no. 12,318,916, issued on June 3, was assigned to WICHITA STATE UNIVERSITY (Wichita, Kan.).
"Surface preparation end effector for industrial robot system and inspection and repair processes" was invented by John Tomblin (Wichita, Kan.), Caleb Saathoff (Wichita, Kan.) and Upul Palliyaguru (Wichita, Kan.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A robot end effector for surface preparation in an automated inspection and repair system for composite parts has an end effector body and a plasma control unit and a plasma jet nozzle supported on the end effector body. The plasma control unit directs a jet of atmospheric plasma through the plasma jet nozzle. A slav...