Features

New Products

Motor Control Integrated Circuit Microsemi Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Microchip Technology (Aliso Viejo, CA), announced the LX7720 radiation-tolerant motor control integrated circuit that works with a field programmable...

Advanced Connector Technologies: From Aerospace to Racecars to Robots

Different types of motion encountered in dynamic environments require designers to specify connectors for boards, wiring, and devices that can meet significant g-forces,...

Robots Bring Airplane Production Up to Speed

Robots are helping a European airplane manufacturer cut into an eight-year backlog of orders for one of its most popular aircraft.

Implementing Anti-Rotational Guidance for Stepper Motor Linear Actuators

Integrating lead screws with stepper motors is a simple and cost-effective method for getting precise linear motion. But achieving that precision requires anti-rotational...

Optimizing Industrial Embedded Imaging Development

Machine vision systems have traditionally consisted of stand-alone cameras tethered to PC-based boards or frame grabbers using highspeed interfaces such as Camera Link, CoaXPress and Gigabit...

Clear Vision for UAVs

The rapidly expanding world-wide use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) — drones — is driving a growing market for specialized imaging technology. According to Chris Yiu, General Manager, High Performance BU at...

New Products

VGA Sensor Now available from FRAMOS (Ottawa, Canada), the Sony IMX426 Pregius™ 3rd generation Global Shutter CMOS image sensor provides 9μm pixel size and reaches VGA resolution with 1,449 fps@10-bit for maximized throughput...

SPIE Photonics West 2019 Preview

The SPIE Photonics West 2019 technical conference and exhibition returns to The Moscone Center in San Francisco, February 2 through February 7, offering attendees the opportunity to explore the latest...

Ultrafast Laser Micromachining

Ultrashort pulse (USP) lasers for precision micromachining can minimize or avoid undesirable thermal effects that limit feature resolution, edge quality and, ultimately, product functionality. This is because...

Cleaning or Etching Items with Unique Geometries

Cleaning, an integral part of many manufacturing and maintenance processes, is often critical to the performance of a broad range of technologies in the semiconductor, defense, MEMS, photonics...

Q&A: University of Utah’s Robby Bowles 3D-Prints Cells to Produce Human Tissue

Professor Bowles has developed a method to 3D-print cells to produce human tissue. This replacement tissue can greatly improve the recovery of a person with a...

5 Ws of the Lead-Detection Smartphone System

Who Individuals needing or wanting to examine lead content in their drinking water on-demand and in virtually any environmental setting.

3D Printing: The Impact of Post-Processing

The perception and promise of 3D printing are that it offers a digital workflow that is simple, fast, and automated — a process that is complexity-free. That perception is generally correct up to the...

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.

High-Res Science Made Possible with 8K Footage from Space

REDIrvine, CAwww.red.com NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have delivered the first 8K ultra-high-definition (UHD) video of astronauts living, working, and conducting research...

Design Software Transforms How Commercial Jetliners are Built

Spinoff is NASA's annual publication featuring successfully commercialized NASA technology. This commercialization has contributed to the development of products and services in the...

Vehicle Design with System-Level Modeling

MaplesoftWaterloo, ON, Canadawww.maplesoft.com The demand for innovation is universal across industries, as new products are required to meet higher performance standards without slowing the overall...

Facility Focus: NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center

NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) has been a leader in human space exploration for more than half a century. Established in 1961 in Houston, TX as the Manned Spacecraft Center, the center...

Product of the Month

EFCO, San Diego, CA, introduced the SmartSL Plus embedded box computer with Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) capability. Powered by the 3rd Gen (Bay Trail) Intel® Atom™ or Celeron® processor, the fanless, cable-less computer...

New on the Market: January 2019

Laptop Computers Eurocom, Nepean, ON, Canada offers Sky “C” Series laptop computers based on the Z370 Intel chipset and using CPU-upgrade-able, LGA1151 socket-based processors. They support up to 128 GB of...

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...

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...

New Products

Motor/Drive/Controller Advanced Micro Controls (Terryville, CT) offers a size 17 PLC-based SMD Series integrated stepper motor/drive/controller system. The integrated solutions are suited for new machinery, retrofits, and rapid...

Smart Actuators Deliver on the Promise of Industry 4.0

As Industry 4.0 initiatives bring more and more industrial axes of motion into the realm of automation, the need for cost-effective control across them grows as well. Advances in robotics,...

Q&A: Rice University's Rouzbeh Shahsavari Creates a Stronger, Lighter Cement

Professor Shahsavari and graduate student Sung Hoon have demonstrated a process for producing a cement that is stronger, lighter, and more durable than the traditional...

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.

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...

Vote for Product of the Year 2018

The 2018 Nominees Are: Each December, we ask our readers to cast their votes in the annual Tech Briefs’ Readers’ Choice Product of the Year Awards. Each month, our editors choose a Product of the Month that...

5 Ws of Spray-On Antennas

Who Manufacturers and users of wearables, functional fabrics, mobile devices, wireless routers, and Internet of Things devices.