I guess there is no need for an overactive imagination if you’re going to deal with something mythical like a flying carpet – it seems that scientists have managed to use a plastic sheet that is lifted into the air by air packets, where it can also be propelled forwards. While you might not be able to achieve the level of agility and sentience like the magic carpet that Aladdin rides on (not to mention having a beauty of a princess alongside), this might be the start of a new mode of transportation, thanks to the efforts made at Princeton University.
This 10cm sheet of smart transparency is driven by “ripple power”, which are actually waves of electrical current that will flex a thin sheet to drive thin pockets of air from front to rear underneath. The prototype won’t win any speed contests anytime soon (unless it is at the opposite end of the spectrum, of course), where it will plod along at speeds of around a centimetre per second. It is said that future improvements to the design might result in a hundredfold increase of a metre per second – but even that is without carrying any load.
Filed in ..