Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
Miki Pulley US (Plymouth, MN) offers the Step-Flex™ shaft coupling that eliminates resonance in stepper motor ball screw assemblies. The two-part elastomer element combination dampens vibration caused by the actuator carrier...
Products: Motion Control
Koford Engineering LLC (Winchester, OH) has introduced a line of 5.07" (129 mm)-diameter slotted motors for applications requiring high torque and power in a short axial length. The motors are 3.149" (80 mm) long, with a peak...
Products: Motion Control
HBM (Marlborough, MA) has introduced the PX460 industrial measurement amplifier that measures raw and filtered torque, frequency, pulse, speed, and angle of rotation. The position-based torque measurements can be used...
Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
NK Technologies (San Jose, CA) offers the ATS Series AC current sensors that combine a current-operated switch and transducer in a single package. A built-in digital display provides a visual indication of where the contact...
Products: Motion Control
Newport Corp. (Irvine, CA) has introduced the FCR100 rotation stage that features a stepper motor with an integrated controller/ driver using the company’s iPP™ technology. This design simplifies cable management and...
Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
Avago Technologies (San Jose, CA) has introduced the AEDR-87xx series of 3-channel reflective optical encoder devices for use in low-power, miniaturized motion control systems such as stepper motors, electrical actuators,...
Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
Midwest Motion Products (Watertown, MN) offers the Model MMP-D33-455F-24V GP81-046 planetary DC gearmotor that accepts any 24 Volt DC source, including battery power. It measures 3.2" in diameter, and has a keyed output shaft of...
Products: Motion Control
Position Sensors
ams AG (Raleigh, NC) has introduced the 47 Series magnetic position sensors featuring a technology capable of producing accurate angle measurements of rotors spinning at high speed. The sensors feature DAEC™ (Dynamic Angle Error Compensation), a patent-pending technology that eliminates the measurement error attributable to...
Products: Motion Control
The EGP from SCHUNK (Morrisville, NC) is an electric small part gripper that weighs 110 g, and has a stroke of 3 mm per finger. The gripping force can be adjusted on two stages, and its maximum gripping force amounts to 40 N....
Products: Motion Control
POSITAL-FRABA America (Hamilton, NJ) has introduced optical encoders with EtherCAT that provide high-speed data for positioning and speed control with cycle times of up to 62 μs. Using a distributed clock function, they...
Products: Motion Control
The ATOM™ non-contact optical linear and rotary incremental encoder system from Renishaw (Hoffman Estates, IL) combines miniaturization with dirt immunity and signal stability. It features a readhead as small as 6.7 x 12.7 x...
Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
Omron Automation and Safety (Schaumburg, IL) offers the Sysmac NJ machine automation controller that provides direct connectivity to SQL databases, including Microsoft SQL, Oracle, IBM DB2, MySQL, and Firebird....
Application Briefs: Electronics & Computers
TTTech North America
Andover, MA
978-933-7979
www.tttech.com
Radiation-tolerant Ethernet backbone ASICs, developed by Honeywell Aerospace and based on...
Application Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Plasma-Therm
St. Petersburg, FL
727-577-4999
www.plasmatherm.com
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory...
Application Briefs: Imaging
SRI International
Menlo Park, CA
650-859-2000
www.sri.com
SRI International, working with TowerJazz (Newport Beach, CA), has...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Swan Seal
This seal features dual sealing capabilities: a face seal and an axial seal. The name swan seal is derived from its cross section, which resembles a swan. Most injector designs require fuel to be delivered from an inlet fitting, through a feed arm, to the injector tip. Temperature variation from the inlet to the tip, from the cool fuel...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
The extreme conditions on Venus (460 °C and 92 atm) prevent the use of any of the existing science instruments outside of the lander. To transfer a sample into the lander, a...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Advanced Composite Thrust Chambers for In-Space Propulsion
Radiation-cooled, bipropellant thrust chambers are being used for in-space propulsion. To increase the performance of radiation-cooled engines, improved chamber materials are needed that will allow higher operating conditions (pressure and temperature), better resistance to oxidation,...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
A Field-Reconfigurable Manipulator for Rovers
Robotic technologies will be deeply involved in any future human mission to the Moon. Prior to human arrival, robots will survey and explore the lunar surface, establish infrastructure, and assemble and test habitat modules. Once humans have arrived, the robots must be able to assist human...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Integrally Woven Fiber Architecture for Composite Turbine Blades
Composite turbine blades are currently fabricated by laying up multiple layers of fibers in the form of either unidirectional prepregs or thin woven cloth. Composites formed in this manner have poor through-thickness strength. It is also difficult, if not impossible, to form...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Lightweight, Flexible, Freezable Heat Pump/Radiator for EVA Suits
For space exploration missions that may require extended stays and extensive extra-vehicular activity (EVA) operations, the temperature control system must be lightweight, rugged, non-venting, and repairable in space.
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Assembly and Packaging to Mass-Produce Carbon Nanotube Vacuum Microdevices and Circuits
Field-emission electron sources using carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are being targeted for low-power vacuum microelectronic applications for harsh-environment operation (high temperature, pressure, and corrosive atmosphere). While CNTs have demonstrated excellent...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Typical lighter-than-air vehicles utilizing a superpressure design such as balloons, aerostats, or blimps, have one or more fittings attached to the gas containment skin that can serve as load attachment...
Briefs: Materials
Refractory Open-Cell Foam Fuel Matrix for High-Efficiency Nuclear Thermal Propulsion
A tricarbide foam fuel material has been developed that can operate at temperatures near 3,000 °C, without substantial hydrogen erosion, while providing highly efficient heat transfer to the coolant or propellant. A tricarbide foam fuel matrix of zirconium...
Briefs: Materials
High-Efficiency, Easy-to-Manufacture Engineered Nanomaterials for Thermoelectric Applications
Stated generally, reducing the dimensionality of bulk-scale thermoelectric (TE) materials is theoretically and practically understood to be a viable route for maintaining/increasing phonon scattering, and maintaining/increasing electrical conductivity...
Briefs: Materials
Hydrazine Absorbent/Detoxification Pad
A new chemistry was developed for existing hydrazine absorbent/detoxification pads. Enhancements include faster reaction rates, weight reduction, a color change that indicates spill occurrence, and another color change that indicates successful hydrazine degradation. The previous spill control pad, using...
Briefs: Materials
Nanotechnology Approach to Lightweight, Multifunctional Polyethylene Composite Materials
Of several ideas being pursued by NASA for the reduction of radiation dosage to astronauts, the use of ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMWPE)-based composite materials for both radiation shielding and micrometeorite shielding appears to be...
Briefs: Materials
Electrostrictive Polymers
A new class of electroactive polymeric blend materials has been created that offers both sensing and actuation dual functionality. The blend is comprised of two components where one has sensing capability, and the other has actuating capability. These innovative materials provide significant field-induced strain, high...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
The COVE (CubeSat Onboard processing Validation Experiment) Payload Processor is JPL’s first on-orbit demonstration with the Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA (field-programmable gate array). The electronics payload is...
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