Electrostatic phenomena were known since the early days of the ancient Greeks.

Greek
philosopher Thales of Miletus, who lived around 600 B.C., noticed that when a piece of amber
(fossilized tree sap) was rubbed, light objects such as feathers were attracted to it.

In the late 1700's, several experiments were performed by French scientist Charles Augustin de
Coulomb to determine the variables that affect electrical force. Around 1785, he stated that
opposite charges attract and like charges repel which became Coulomb's Law. Based on
Coulomb's law, the electro-static forces are proportional to the products of the charges and
inversely proportional to the square distance between charges.

Electro adhesion is essentially the effect of adhesion between two surfaces when subjected to an
electric field generated by a charge deferential across a dielectric. Electrostatic forces can be
obtained to adhere to most types of materials whether they are insulators or conductors.

Electro adhesive mechanisms have been used for many years in various industries as a form of
gripping or retrieval system. There are other existing methods of gripping systems such as
chemical adhesion, suction cups, magnetic, and mechanical grippers. Each method has attributes
that make it desirable, but each also has unfavorable attributes. Chemical adhesion, for example,
can generate a strong bond, but cannot be re-used once the bond has been set. The bonding
agents would also have to be able to cure in space conditions in lack of oxygen. Suction cups
usually create high adhesion force but would not function in a space environment due to lack of
air. Magnetic grippers can provide strong adhesion, but their use is limited to only ferromagnetic
surfaces. Mechanical arms, such as robotic arms, are commonly used to handle large payloads.
The disadvantage with mechanical arms is that they are usually pre-designed to grip certain
objects and are quite complex in dynamics and control. The main advantage of electro adhesion
is that it can be repeatedly used on various rough, smooth, and on dusty surfaces. Even when
dusty surfaces are present, adhesion can still be achieved. With electro adhesion pads, no residue
or damage to the substrate is left behind like other methods, such as chemical adhesion.
 Electro adhesion pads can adhere to various types of surfaces whether they are conductive,
semi-conductive, or insulating surfaces (Koh, 2014). A drawback on electro adhesion pads is that
they must be in very close contact with the adhering body to generate forces. Another drawback
of using electro adhesion is that they produce relatively lower adhesion force than the other
methods. Adhesion can be increased though, through the selection of materials and geometry.

Electro adhesion is a complicated and dynamic electrostatic attraction phenomenon with 33

variables influencing the obtainable electro adhesive forces between the electro adhesive pad and
the substrate. The variables influencing the electro adhesive forces, are demonstrated in figure.
Rather than these variables if ac voltage is used, the frequency may influence the electro
adhesive forces obtainable. Also, some dielectric properties such as the dissipation factor of the
dielectric may influence the electro adhesive forces obtainable the principles of generating
electro adhesive forces on conductive and insulating substrate materials are different.

The modelling of the electro adhesive forces on conductive substrates can approximate to
theories based on parallel capacitance whilst coplanar capacitance, together with a complicated
dynamic polarization process, should be accounted for when considering insulating substrates.
For conductive substrates, Coulomb forces will be dominant if the volume resistivity of the
dielectric material covering the electrodes is greater than approximately 1014 Ω cm whilst
Johnsen–Rahbek forces will be dominant if the volume
resistivity is between approximately 1010 and 1012 Ω cm
[13].The theoretical modelling of electro adhesive forces on
conductive substrates were mostly based on the Maxwell stress
tensor method and the virtual work method, and is always
based on several assumptions [14] such as that the dielectric
material is rigid, linear, homogenous, isotropic and neutrally
charged, the scale of the area of the pad is far larger than the
thickness dielectrics within the capacitor and the fringing fields
are neglected