Selecting Electric Traction Solutions for AGVs and Mobile Robots

Smarter, better, faster, less expensive — those words are the mantra of today’s global economy. As organizations seek to streamline operations and do more with less, they...

Failsafe Linear Magnetic Brakes

Linear permanent magnet brakes, also known as eddy current brakes, are a failsafe, power-free deceleration system that is used in conjunction with a metal reaction plate. Ceramic or rare earth magnets are...

Multimaterial 3D Printing Used to Develop Fast-Response, Stiffness-Tunable, Soft Actuator

Fast-response, stiffness-tunable (FRST) soft actuators — or movable machine elements — were developed that could be used in soft robots.

Smart Microrobots Adapt to Surroundings

Researchers, drawing inspiration from bacteria, have designed smart, bio-compatible microrobots that are highly flexible. Because these devices are able to swim through fluids and modify their shape...

Self-Lubrication Improves Standard Braking Systems

By mixing carbon fibers into polymer-based brakes, researchers designed brakes that are self-lubricating. These new and improved brakes can prevent wear-and-tear and have better frictional...

Understanding the Basics of Gas Spring Application

When choosing a gas spring for a particular application, it’s imperative to have a basic understanding of the workings and terminology used when specifying gas springs. This article offers...

Keck Telescopes Get a Motion Control Upgrade

In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Hawaii Island is surrounded by thousands of miles of thermally stable seas. The 13,796-foot Maunakea mountain summit has no nearby ranges to roil the upper...

Directly Cooled Electric Motor Made from Polymer Materials

Making electric cars lighter also involves reducing the weight of the motor. One way to do that is by constructing it from fiber-reinforced polymer materials. A new cooling concept...

New Products: April 2019 Motion Design

Bearing Sensor

ABB (Zurich, Switzerland) introduced the ABB Ability™ smart sensor that enables health checks for bearings. The smart sensor technology provides an early indicator of...

Synthesizing Renewable Oils for Use in Lubricants

Industrial machinery, agricultural equipment, transportation vessels, and home applications depend on lubricants; however, they leave a heavy environmental footprint. Common lubricants, oils,...

Thin, Durable Heating Patches

Thin, durable heating patches were created using intense pulses of light to fuse tiny silver wires with polyester. Their heating performance is nearly 70 percent higher than similar patches. The inexpensive...

Q&A: Texas A&M's Jaime Grunlan Creates a Non-Toxic Flame-Retardant Coating

Texas A&M professor Jaime Grunlan and his team are developing a new flame-retardant coating using renewable, nontoxic materials readily found in nature that...

Material Captures and Removes Toxic Atmospheric Gas

A metal-organic framework (MOF) material was developed that exhibits a selective, fully reversible, and repeatable capability to remove nitrogen dioxide gas from the atmosphere in ambient...

Novel Dielectric Ceramic by Spark Plasma Sintering

Researchers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center have developed a new dielectric material based on barium titanate nanopowder processed via spark plasma sintering (SPS). The rapid and...

Skin-Like Sensor Maps Blood-Oxygen Levels

A new type of oximeter — or blood-oxygen sensor — is made of organic electronics printed on bendable plastic that molds to the contours of the body. Unlike fingertip oximeters, it can detect...

Achieving Carbon Footprint Reduction with Flywheel Technology

Recent technical advances have enabled flywheel energy storage systems (FESS) to become more compact and able to support higher-power applications. Due to their proven...

Using Common WiFi to Detect Weapons, Bombs, and Chemicals in Bags

Ordinary WiFi can easily detect weapons, bombs, and explosive chemicals in bags at museums, stadiums, theme parks, schools, and other public venues using a low-cost suspicious...

Fabric Alternative to Batteries for Wearable Devices

Wearable biosensors for health monitoring lack a lightweight, long-lasting power supply. A new method was developed for making a charge-storing system that is easily integrated into...

New Material Provides Enhanced Tactility for Soft Sensors

Flexible and wearable sensors measure and track body motion, a task made more complex by the human anatomy’s numerous potential contortions. For a wearable sensor to work properly,...

Rechargeable, High-Temperature, Molten Salt Battery

Growing demand for electric vehicles and more sustainable forms of transport means finding new forms of energy storage such as batteries, supercapacitors, and fuel cells. Currently, a major...

Laser Measurement Sensors Solve High-Speed Package Profiling

Banner Engineering
Plymouth, MN
www.bannerengineering.com

Sorting parcels and packages prior to delivery is an essential step in shipping and handling. Order...

Electric Vehicle Fast Chargers Present Some Overlooked Circuit Protection Challenges

The first mass-produced electric vehicles (EVs) hit the road late in 2010 with the introduction of the Nissan Leaf, which remains the world’s top-selling,...

Metal 3D Printing for Complex Heat Exchangers

Renishaw
West Dundee, IL
www.renishaw.com

HiETA develops metal additive manufacturing (AM) methods for the production of complex, lightweight structures for heat management...

Wearable Devices Allow Direct Communication by Touch

Emergency situations such as trying to escape heavy smoke from fire could leave the sense of touch as the only way to find an exit. Rather than trying to look at a smartphone screen, a...

Metallic Hollow Nanoparticle Fabrication

NASA Langley Research Center has developed new methods for fabricating hollow nanoparticles using dendrimer molecules. Dendrimers are used as templates to control the size, stability, and solubility...

Extrans Permeation Measurement System

Many applications in science and industry require an apparatus that creates a controlled amount of a fluid introduced into another fluid. For instance, some material corrosion testing applications...