Automatic page-turning mechanism with near-field electroadhesive force for linearly correctable imaging

Recently in tandem with the spread of portable devices for reading electronic books, devices for digitizing paper books, called book scanners, are developed to meet the increased demand for digitizing privately owned books. However, conventional book scanners still have complex components to mechanically turn pages and to rectify the acquired images that are inevitably distorted by the curvy book surface. Here, we present the multi-scale mechanism that turns pages electronically using electroadhesive force generated by a micro-scale structure. Its another advantage is that perspective correction of image processing is applicable to readily reconstruct the distorted images of pages. Specifically, to turn one page at a time not two pages, we employ a micro-scale structure to generate near-field electroadhesive force that decays rapidly and accordingly attracts objects within tens of micrometers. We analyze geometrical parameters of the micro-scale structure to improve the decay characteristics. We find that the decay characteristics of electroadhesive force definitely depends upon the geometrical period of the micro-scale structure, while its magnitude depends on a variety of parameters. Based on this observation, we propose a novel electrode configuration with improved decay characteristics. Dynamical stability and kinematic requirements are also examined to successfully introduce near-field electroadhesive force into our digitizing process.