Patent ID: 8084898

Claim:
A magnetic actuator comprising: a housing; a first permanent magnet and a second permanent magnet placed in the housing and being relatively rotatable in a plane including a magnetization direction; a magnetic-field generating unit outside of the housing, the magnetic-field generating unit generating a magnetic field that relatively rotates the first permanent magnet and/or the second permanent magnet so that switching between a first arrangement in which the first permanent magnet and the second permanent magnet do not generate a repulsive force against each other and a second arrangement in which the first permanent magnet and the second permanent magnet generate a repulsive force against each other is performed; and a first guiding portion provided in the housing to regulate a direction in which the first permanent magnet and the second permanent magnet relatively move by the generated repulsive force, wherein the first permanent magnet is fixed to the housing, the second permanent magnet is placed in the first guiding portion and is rotatable in the plane including the magnetization direction of the second permanent magnet, and the magnetic-field generating unit generates a magnetic field in the first guiding portion.