Application Briefs

One-Cable Automation Streamlines Robotic Non-Destructive Inspection Systems

There are few industries where the demands for material testing and quality assurance are more challenging than in the aerospace industry. Ensuring the safety of all...

Multi-Axis Motion Controller Accelerates Gear Testing

Materials testing and characterization is often a lengthy process. It can take more than a year and billions of testing cycles for a manufacturer to characterize the properties of a new...

Crash Test Dummies Get Older and Better with 3D Printing

MarkforgedWatertown, MAmarkforged.com The crash test dummy has come of age over many decades as the gold standard for safety testing of automobiles. Organizations like the National...

Imaging Innovation for Spinal Care

Motion capture (Mocap) is a technique used in the film industry to digitally track a human actor's movements and precisely transfer those motions to an animated figure. But it has other applications as well....

Ray Optics Simulation of Inertial Navigation Systems

Attitude detection is a crucial element in aircraft and spacecraft navigation. The motion of an aircraft consists of a translational component (motion of its center of mass with respect to...

Unique Lift System Enables Installation and Servicing of Large Telescope Mirrors

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), under construction atop 8,737-foot El Peñón peak in northern Chile, is a partnership project of the National Science...

How to Specify Intrinsically Safe Remote Monitoring Sensor Systems

Wireless sensor networks frequently operate in hazardous areas where explosive atmospheres pose a safety risk to equipment and operators. The design of these systems must follow...

Specifying Coatings for Military and Aerospace Applications

Optics are employed in virtually every area of military operations, from vision systems and target designators used by troops on the ground, through guidance systems utilized in both...

Three Popular Machine Vision Standards

Advancements in machine vision have augmented industrial automation and provided a platform to advance imaging-based automatic inspection and analysis applications. This technology, however, comes with its...

Coating Erosion Tests Help Keep Mars 2020 Rover Safe

Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL)Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OHwww.wpafb.af.mil/afrl Mars rovers are sophisticated, multi-instrumented pieces of equipment that travel over the surface...

NASA's Robotic Sniffer Finds Space Station Leak

Stanford Research SystemsSunnyvale, CAwww.thinksrs.com The Robotic External Leak Locator (RELL) — a collaboration between NASA's Johnson Space Center and Goddard Space Flight Center — was...

High-Speed Reluctance Machine Design

Silphenix GmbH is an engineering and consulting firm in Switzerland specializing in high-speed electrical machines, magnetic bearings, and electromagnetic field analysis. One project focus is compact...

System Tests Dream Chaser's Atmospheric Flight Control System

SAKOR TechnologiesOwosso, MIwww.sakor.com SAKOR Technologies supplied a test system to Southwest Research Institute® (SwRI) to be used to test the atmospheric flight control system...

Drive Technology: The Recipe for Precise Actuator Control

Worldwide, there are only a handful of manufacturers of electrical actuators for the process industry, and the Vienna, Austria-based company Schiebel Antriebstechnik GmbH is the smallest...

Reducing Weight and Design Time for Dream Chaser Spacecraft

Collier Research CorporationNewport News, VAwww.hypersizer.com With the go-ahead from NASA for a first mission to the International Space Station (ISS), the Sierra Nevada Corporation's...

Military Optics Technology

The demand for innovative solutions to enhance the safety of military personnel is continually on the rise. This includes the need to improve the performance of military vehicles and aircraft, in terms of both safety...

Bringing Multispectral Imaging to Industrial Applications

A mere 20 years ago, machine vision system designers did all they could to avoid color imaging applications due to higher costs and greater system and software complexity. But as...

Autonomous Vehicles and the Burden of Testing

AB DynamicsWiltshire, Englandwww.abdynamics.com Autonomous vehicles cannot be tested for every eventuality that might transpire in their operating environment. As the technology becomes more...

Force Sensing — An Addition to the Physical Therapy Toolbox

Undergoing treatment for a physical injury or condition can be a long and frustrating experience. Broken bones, sprains, torn muscles or ligaments, as well as painful conditions that...

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 not...

3D-Printed Parts Key to NASA’s Orion Mission

Stratasys Ltd.Eden Prairie, MNwww.stratasys.com Orion is NASA’s spacecraft that will send astronauts to the Moon and beyond. Orion’s next test flight, dubbed Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), will...

Using Digital Microscopes as Inspection Tools

Digital microscopes are being automated and computerized to make them easier to use, display more data with more detail and precision, and expand their areas of application. With traditional...

Advanced Data Acquisition Technology Improves Global Weather Predictions

Northrop Grumman CorporationAzusa, CAwww.northropgrumman.com Two critical instruments built by Northrop Grumman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s...

Direct AC LED Engines

As the lighting industry continues to mature, vendors continue to pursue inexpensive lighting solutions that offer universal compatibility and are easy to install. For OEMs and manufacturers, LEDs have proven to be a...

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 manual...

Sensor Networks — The Platform for a Connected Farm

Farming has not been untouched by the IoT revolution. The relationships among field conditions, crops, and strategies for planting, irrigating, and harvesting are complex, yet vital for the...

ADAS Design – Specialized Chipsets Do the Job

Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) are improving driver and pedestrian safety, providing vehicle capabilities such as pedestrian detection, lane departure warnings, collision avoidance, and...

Hyperspectral Imaging – Teaching Robots to See

Hyperspectral imaging is an exciting and promising new technology. When combined with modern machine learning software and actuators such as robots, air-jets, or flippers, hyperspectral imaging...

Mixing 3D Printing Technologies Helps Optimize Products

StratasysEden Prairie, MNwww.stratasys.com Christie Digital Systems manufactures advanced digital projectors and displays using an innovative prototyping program. The company serves...