Articles

The Less is More Approach to Robotic Cable Management

In recent years, cable management has come into the limelight because machine reliability has increased dramatically, even though robots have grown more complex. Unfortunately, the methods...

Essential Principles for Designing and Specifying Laser Optics

Laser engineers are leveraging new materials, unusual gain mechanisms, and innovative cavity designs to push laser performance into new regimes. Pulse lengths are getting shorter,...

Novel Laser Power Sensor Technology for Process Control

The need to measure laser output characteristics, including average power, pulse energy, and pulse shape, is a common requirement across many industrial and research applications. However,...

High-Speed Multi-Sensor Imaging

Machine vision plays a key role in the automation of production processes. Since the advent of vision in industrial manufacturing, there have been many advances in camera and image sensor technology. Right from...

3D Imaging in Space

NASA is digging ever more deeply into understanding the makeup of the surfaces of Mars and our Moon. A lot can be learned by sending instruments to land on these places, but vastly more can be discovered by bringing back...

Products of Tomorrow

This column presents technologies that have applications in commercial areas, possibly creating the products of tomorrow. To learn more about each technology, see the contact information provided for that innovation.

3D-Printed Lab on Wheels

Next-generation manufacturing takes on a 50-year-old icon as ORNL researchers transform the classic Shelby Cobra sports car into a 3D-printed laboratory on wheels. Additive manufacturing enables the seamless integration...

Protecting Sensitive Instruments with Piezo-Driven Active Vibration Isolation Platforms

As the need for nano precision has become increasingly important in many fields of research and manufacturing — such as microelectronics fabrication,...

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...

Industrial Rotary Encoders: Selecting the Right Device for Your Application

Rotary encoders play important roles in motion control and industrial automation systems, providing control systems with information about the motion of motor shafts,...

Cobots and Industrial Robots: Choose the Right Robot for the Job

Automating manufacturing processes is a complex issue, with no one-size-fits-all solution. Robots range from insect-like microrobots to industrial robots powerful enough to move...

Circuit Protection Challenges for Battery Management Systems

The market for higher-voltage automotive systems is expanding. The number of electric vehicles that use battery-powered drive systems having voltage equal to or higher than 48V is...

Products of Tomorrow

This column presents technologies that have applications in commercial areas, possibly creating the products of tomorrow. To learn more about each technology, see the contact information provided for that innovation.

Understanding Network Topology

Sensor networks are the backbone of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0. They provide the data that drives automated systems: both feedback for control loops and status information for all of the...

How to Secure Wireless Sensor Networks

The Internet of Things (IoT) promises to integrate all sorts of devices, near and far, into a connected web. This web is forecast to see exponential growth. But in the rush for companies to maximize their...

Pros & Cons of Advanced Lightweighting Materials

Learn how advanced materials are creating high-efficiency engines, better powertrains, and lighter components.

Understanding the New Optical Data Interface

In October of 2017 the AXIe Consortium, VITA trade association, and six companies endorsed a new optical interface standard named Optical Data Interface, or ODI for short. The six companies were...

Space Imaging

The term Space Imaging covers a wide variety of mission types and technologies.

Learn to Trust Your Infrared Camera

It's tough to trust measurements from instruments when you don't have a clear understanding of how their sensitivity and accuracy are derived, and many times infrared cameras fall in this category. In...

Trends in Thermal Imaging

Most manufacturers of uncooled amorphous silicon (AS) and vanadium oxide (VOx) microbolometer focal plane array (FPA) products have long been producing imaging devices with 17 μm pixel-pitch arrays. Currently, 320 ×...

Hunting New Mining Deposits with Hyperspectral Imaging

How much gold remains to be mined on Earth? How about the lesser-known element, indium, necessary for computer and smartphone displays? With known sources of some essential metals facing...

SAE WCX Preview: Experience the Evolution

Revolutionary changes are driving the mobility industry forward. Explore the next generation of transportation engineering at SAE’s WCX: World Congress Experience from April 10-12 in Detroit, MI....

Products of Tomorrow

This column presents technologies that have applications in commercial areas, possibly creating the products of tomorrow. To learn more about each technology, see the contact information provided for that innovation.

Comparison Between Wave Soldering and Reflow Soldering

As contemporary electronics embrace light weight, increasing efficiency, and high speed, each link of the manufacturing process also conforms to this philosophy, including printed circuit...

Driver Design in Piezoelectric Motors

For most electrical engineers, the simple term “motor” means one thing: an electromagnetic rotary-motion unit. Engineers who need linear rather than rotary motion consider adding a mechanical linkage...

Strengthening Data Cabling for Next-Generation Motion Control Applications

The wide variety of industrial applications each independently calls for a level of robustness from the physical (PHY) layer, all the way up to applications. Time...

Products of Tomorrow

This column presents technologies that have applications in commercial areas, possibly creating the products of tomorrow. To learn more about each technology, see the contact information provided for that innovation.

Nd:YAG or Fiber Laser for Micro Welding?

Four lasers can be used for micro welding: pulsed neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:YAG), continuous wave (CW) fiber, quasi continuous wave (QCW) fiber, and nanosecond fiber. Each laser type...

The Effects of Micro-Electric Discharge Machining (μEDM) on the Topography of Stainless Steel

Two basic components make up the value added to a work piece by the micro-electric discharge machining (μEDM) process: form and surface finish....