Machine Condition Monitoring Keeps a Factory Running

Learn how to outfit your equipment with sensors.

Algorithm Designs Soft Robots That Sense

A deep-learning technique optimizes the arrangement of sensors on a robot’s body to ensure efficient operation.

Algorithm Gives Robots a Faster Grasp

The algorithm speeds up the planning process robots use to adjust their grip on objects for picking and sorting or tool use.

Machine Control Power Quality and Surge Protection

You may not be able to see them, but power anomalies that originate within your automated control system are costing you expensive downtime.

Online Tools Reduce Time and Expense in Selecting, Configuring, and Ordering Motion Control Components

New online tools — coupled with online libraries of pre-selected and tested component specifications — simplify machine design.

Machine Health & Asset Monitoring in Industrial Applications: A Look at Sensor Technologies

Learn about the sensors assessing and analyzing plant equipment.

System Eases Networking Lag in Massive IoT Devices

“EasyPass” would enable smart warehouses, automated factories, and more to operate without delays.

Process Creates Soft Actuated Objects Using Commercial Knitting Machines

This approach could be used to cost-effectively make soft robots and wearable technologies.

Advanced Sensing Solutions for Cost-Effective Machine Building

The right sensors can cut machine building costs, improve flexibility, and boost customer satisfaction.

Shortwave Infrared Cameras for High-Temperature Manufacturing and R&D Processes

There are longwave, midwave, and shortwave camera systems—each with its own advantages for specific industries and uses.

Smart Manufacturing Control

Today's advanced smart CNC controls allow manufacturers to optimize the manufacturing process right on the factory floor

Going Beyond the Basics: Innovative Step Motor Designs Give Machine Designers More Options for Motion Control

Machine and system designers now have greater options in choosing a motor to meet motion control requirements.

Collaborative Automation: It's More Than Just the Cobot

“Cobots” allow companies of almost any size to automate processes that were previously out of reach.

2019 'Create the Future' Manufacturing/Robotics/Automation Category Winner: The HPCI® Joining Gun

A team of inventors found a fast way to join plastic to metal.

Tiny “Walking” Motor Moves in Discrete Mechanical Steps

A set of five tiny fundamental parts can be assembled into a wide variety of functional devices including a tiny “walking” motor that can move back and forth across a surface or...

Executive Forum: Sensors & the IoT

No longer just a buzzword, the Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly taking hold in many different industries, from aerospace and automotive, to medical and manufacturing. The IoT ecosystem incorporates...

Cross-Training Made Possible by Common Control Platform

EMAG L.L.C. is the U.S. subsidiary of a major German machine tool builder that specializes in machine tools for the production of automotive, off-highway, agricultural, and oil field...

Industrial Blue Lasers

What Does It Takes to Change the Game?

Industrial lasers are integrated into manufacturing and fabrication facilities around the world. Every moment, there is an industrial laser somewhere that is cutting, etching,...

Custom Optomechanics in Industrial UV Lasers

Reliability and longevity directly impact the cost of using Q-switched, diode pumped, solid state, ultraviolet lasers in industrial applications. Damage to the intracavity harmonic crystal is...

Motion Control in Factories: Choosing the Right Solution

The need for Ethernet-based communication within the factory has grown over the past 10 years. Detailed information about the tasks and performance of machines at every stage is...

IMTS2018 Preview

Presented by the Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT), the International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) has been the premier manufacturing technology show in the Northern Hemisphere. IMTS is held every even...

Guiding the Way in Automotive Plants

Vision-guided robotics commonly used in today's automotive plants enables robots to “see” the object they are working on so they can perform the required activity accurately on/to an object that is...

NASA's Autonomous Robot Keeps Manufacturing Floors Safe

A600-pound spider-like robot, called Spidernaut, was part of a prototype robot team built in 2005 to assemble a solar array on the Moon. The goal was not only to have robots do the...

Choosing the Right Brake for Robotic Applications

Industrial robots play an essential role in manufacturing, from assembly, to pick-and-place, to packaging. One of the major risks of robotics — and what OEMs seek to mitigate — is...

Ruggedization of Imaging Lenses

Imaging lenses used in many industrial machine vision applications have special requirements beyond those of standard imaging lenses. The lenses used in factory automation, robotics, and industrial inspection...

SOLVING THE INTERCONNECT CHALLENGE: How to Bring Flexibility to Wearable Design

Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) are more prevalent than ever, especially in the popular configurations known today as “wearables.” Leading MEMS and...

System and Method for Generating a Frequency-Modulated Linear Laser Waveform

NASA's Langley Research Center has made a breakthrough improvement in laser frequency modulation. Frequency modulation technology has been used for surface...