Features

Shape Memory Alloys Achieve High Force and Precision

With very little fanfare, a special class of alloys has been finding its way into our daily lives. From indestructible eyewear, to smartphone cameras, to coronary stents, this material is...

Connecting the Digital Twin: From Idea Through Production, to Customers and Back

Rapidly advancing technology and groundbreaking innovations are changing the world of manufacturing. Trends such as Big Data, Cloud Technology, and the Internet...

New Products

CMOS Linear Image Sensor The S13774 from Hamamatsu Corporation (Hamamatsu City, Japan; Bridgewater, NJ), is a CMOS linear image sensor developed for industrial cameras that require high-speed scanning. The column-parallel readout...

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...

Army Research Laboratory

In October 1992, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) was activated, consolidating the seven corporate labs of the Laboratory Command (LABCOM) with other Army research elements to form a centralized laboratory...

Paired Sleep Tracker and Light Therapy Tools Retrain Circadian Rhythms

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

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.

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...

5 Ws of The Sentinel Wrap

Who Food manufacturers, as well as manufacturers of medical supplies and instruments.

Q&A: OSU's Uranbileg Daalkhaijav Researches How to Rapidly Manufacture Soft Robots

Researchers at Oregon State University’s College of Engineering have taken an important step toward the rapid manufacture of stretchable electronic devices,...

Product of the Month

Teledyne LeCroy, Chestnut Ridge, NY, introduced WaveSurfer 3000z oscilloscopes that feature a 10.1” capacitive touchscreen, a set of debug and analysis tools, multi-instrument capabilities, feature/option upgrades, and...

New on the Market: May 2018

Assembly Pins JW Winco, New Berlin, WI, offers GN 2342 RoHS-compliant stainless steel assembly pins with three washer types available that place the bolt in an axial position in its insertion direction. The washer...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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.

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...

5 Ws of Invisible Glass

Who Users of consumer electronics devices and solar cells, and high-power pulsed laser applications.

All-in-One Lab Device Gets New Instruments via Software Update

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

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...

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,...