Features

Understanding Smart Machines: How They Will Shape the Future

Powered by smart machines, the new industrial revolution is changing how machine builders design, and how manufacturers operate today and in the future. To remain competitive and...

Q&A: Brookhaven's Dr. Yimei Zhu Observes How Lithium Moves Inside Batteries

Researchers at Brookhaven National Laboratory have observed how lithium moves inside individual nanoparticles that make up batteries. The finding could help companies...

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

This year, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) marks 75 years as a research institution. Located in Oak Ridge, TN, ORNL is the largest US Department of Energy science and energy laboratory, conducting basic and...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

New Products

Portable Laser Scanner Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence (North Kingstown, RI) has announced the Leica Absolute Scanner LAS-XL, a new ultralarge scale portable laser scanner. Designed for industries and applications where both...

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...

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...

Product of the Month

ACCES I/O Products, San Diego, CA, announced the USB-AIO family of 12- and 16-bit USB analog I/O modules. The USB-AIO16-16F 16-bit, multifunction analog input/output board is suited for precision measurement, analysis,...

New Products

Mounted Ball Bearings SKF (Lansdale, PA) launched mounted ball bearing units with industry-standard inch series cast iron housings in several designs, inch or metric insert bearings, and several shaft-locking methods. The mounted...

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...

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...

Demolition Probe Gives Construction Workers a Break

Initially designed for use on the Moon, the Electro-Hydraulic Fracturing system — developed at Auburn University with NASA funding — relies upon short, high-pulse power created by...

Q&A: Dr. Abhaya Datye Creates a More Powerful Emission-Control Catalyst

Researchers at Washington State University, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and the University of New Mexico have created a catalyst capable of reducing pollutants...

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.

Sandia National Laboratories

Sandia National Laboratories — headquartered in Albuquerque, MN, with a principal lab in Livermore, CA — is operated and managed by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC (a wholly owned...

5 Ws of the iQ Portable Scanner

Who Doctors, nurses, hospitals, paramedics, and other healthcare professionals; and consumers.

New on the Market: April 2018

Polarization Camera Lucid Vision Labs, Richmond, BC, Canada, announced the 5-megapixel Phoenix polarization camera that can be used to detect stress or defects in manufacturing of materials such as plastic, glass,...

Product of the Month

Product of the Month Opto 22, Temecula, CA, introduced the groov EPIC® system that incorporates into one unit everything needed to connect and control field and operational devices and data through on-premises IT...

New Products

Optical Design Software Lambda Research Corporation (Littleton, MA) announced the release of TracePro 7.8.3 and the Early Visibility release of its flagship TracePro software. Some of the new features and enhancements in TracePro...

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...

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...