Features

2017 Create the Future Design Contest: Aerospace & Defense Category Winner

Airfoil Performance Monitor (APM) John Maris, Puthy Soupin, Ludovic Laberge, and Marie-Hélène Larose Marinvent CorporationSaint-bruno, Quebec, Canada The patented...

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.

2017 Create the Future Design Contest: Electronics Winner

Integrated Multi-Color Light Emitting Device Made with Hybrid Crystal Structure Sang Choi, NASA Langley Research Center; Yeonjoon Park, National Institute of Aerospace (NIA)Hampton,...

2017 Create the Future Design Contest: Grand Prize Winner

Hi-Light - Solar Thermal Chemical Reactor Technology for Converting CO2 to Hydrocarbons Xiangkun (Elvis) Cao, Jessica Akemi Cimada da Silva, David Erickson, and Tobias Hanrath, Cornell...

2017 Create the Future Design Contest: Sustainable Technologies Category Winner

Energy Saving Filter for Removal of Heavy Metals from Water Volodymyr Khranovskyy, R. Yakimova, Ivan Shtepliuk, P. Lima de Carvalho, and A. PintoTalent Molecule...

2017 Create the Future Design Contest: Automotive Category Winner

Heavy Duty Aftermarket Super Truck George Sturmon, Ed Murray, Josh Medling, Susan Schmidt, and Glen HarrisEnviro-CoolSullivan, MO The Heavy Duty Aftermarket Super Truck...

2017 Create the Future Design Contest: Medical Category Winner

Arterial Everter Jeffrey Plott, Adeyiza Momoh, Ian Sando, Brendan McCracken, Mohammed Tiba, Kevin Ward, Jeffrey Kozlow, and Paul Cederna University of Michigan Ann Arbor,...

Injection Molding Service Saves Time and Money for Spring Manufacturer

Proto Labs Maple Plain, MNwww.protolabs.com As products get smaller, their components need to follow suit, and springs are no exception. In a variety of industrial...

CoaXPress Blazes Trail for Faster, Higher Quality Machine Vision

Introduced in 2010, CoaXPress (CXP) has become a leading standard for high-end machine vision, as well as life sciences, security, and defense applications. The CXP standard...

Mineral Analyzer Shakes Answers Out of Soil and Rocks

On the Curiosity rover, a tool called CheMin (Chemistry and Mineralogy) is helping scientists determine what minerals make up the Martian landscape, and whether single-celled or more complex...

Q&A: LBNL's Dr. Haimei Zheng Makes Metal-Organic Spongy Photocatalysts

Dr. Zheng and her team of scientists from Berkeley Lab and Nanyang Technical University in Singapore made metal-organic spongy photocatalysts that convert carbon dioxide...

Product of the Month

ANSYS, Canonsburg, PA, introduced ANSYS® Discovery Live™ simulation software that allows engineers to immediately examine the impact of their design changes. Users can pose what-if questions upfront in the design process...

New Products

Torque Motor ThinGap (Camarillo, CA) has developed the first member of a new motor family of high peak torque density brushless PM motors that reach over 20 Nm/Kg. The frameless LSI 105 torque motor model is 105 mm OD (4.125...

AUGMENTED REALITY: Beyond Gaming to Real-World Solutions

Ask a stranger off the street what Virtual Reality (VR) is or how it works, and most people will have some inclination of what the technology entails; however, ask that same person...

Selecting the Correct Actuator

The need for actuators has grown exponentially. Nearly everywhere you look you can see pneumatic, hydraulic, or electric actuator systems at work in an endless variety of applications. There are many stereotypes...

MOTOR DRIVES: Build or Buy

Every system design presents a unique set of specifications regarding cost, space, time-to-market, and other factors. Designers must therefore make tradeoffs to meet these requirements, such as opting for a higher...

Inch vs. Metric Ball Screws: Are You Asking the Right Questions?

Because ball screws are available in both inch and metric dimensions, designers sometimes begin the specification process by selecting a product family based on the unit of...

Simulation Helps Samsung Deliver Safer, More Efficient Lithium-Ion Battery Packs

Siemens PLM SoftwarePlano, TXwww.plm.automation.siemens.com The use of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries has made the electric vehicle (EV) a reality, and electric...

Brookhaven National Laboratory

Opened in 1947 on the former site of the U.S. military's Camp Upton in New York, Brookhaven National Lab's (BNL) initial mission centered on the peaceful exploration of the atom. Particle accelerators, leading...

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.

Nano-Motion Stages Rely on High-Precision Encoders for Accuracy and Repeatability

ALIO Industries designs and builds very high precision automation stages for nano-level manufacturing and research applications, including microlithography,...

Connectors Link Data Networks for Orion and Industry

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

Q&A: NASA's Dr. James Thorpe Develops Instrumentation for Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA)

Gravitational waves from colliding black holes were first observed by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) instruments...

Product of the Month

The Measuring Division of Kaman Precision Products, Middletown, CT, announced the OEM-2306 non-contact linear displacement measuring instrument using eddy current technology. The board is factory-configured for each...

New Products

795 nm DFB Laser Diode eagleyard Photonics GmbH (Berlin, Germany) completes its offering for rubidium spectroscopy/optically pumped atomic clocks with its release of a new 795 nm DFB laser. Next to the 780 nm DFB lasers and the...

Self-Powered Wireless Sensors in the Industrial Internet of Things

Sensors have a key role in industrial production. For example, they can be used for quality and process monitoring or condition-based maintenance. The range of applications is...

Networking the IoT with IEEE 802.15.4/6LoWPAN

The Industrial Internet of Things is predicated on large-scale, distributed sensor/control networks that can run unattended for months to years with very low power consumption. The characteristic...

DIGITALIZATION: The New Critical Success Factor

The terms Industry 4.0, Big Data, the Internet of Things, and the Digital Factory are being pitched around like a rugby ball, and almost always with a decided lack of clear definition. Let’s...

Camera Trends 2017

For an in-depth look at current trends in the camera market, we interviewed Alex Shikany, Director of Market Analysis, Association for Advancing Automation (A3), Ann Arbor, MI.