Development of a noncontact impact relieving device of a falling object by electromagnetic impulsive force

This paper introduces a noncontact impact relieving device of a falling object by electromagnetic impulsive force. The device consists of a conductive plate, a coil and a drive circuit which contains high voltage power supply, capacitor and electrical switches. By discharging capacitor charge into the coil, eddy current is induced to the conductive plate located near the coil. Then, the electromagnetic interaction of the eddy current and coil current generates impulsive repulsive force. This force allows the falling object to avoid high-speed collision with land without mechanical contact. In this paper, an experimental equipment and results of fall tests are shown. The results demonstrate that the proposed device is effective to reduce landing impact.