Features

Data Acquisition System

Diversified Technical Systems, Seal Beach, CA, introduced the SLICE PRO Field self-contained rugged data acquisition system in a portable kit. It delivers data in low temperatures, high altitudes, and low-pressure...

Disposable Cartridge Components

Plastikos, Erie, PA, offers disposable cartridge components made of cyclic olefin polymer (COC) for wearable drug delivery devices holding medications such as insulin and pain medicines. The disposable...

Products of Tomorrow

The technologies NASA develops don’t just blast off into space. They also improve our lives here on Earth. Life-saving search-and-rescue tools, implantable medical devices, advances in commercial aircraft safety,...

NASA’s Pursuit of Power

Advances in Capacitor Materials Electrochemical capacitors, or supercapacitors, have gained intense interest as an alternative to traditional energy storage devices. Applications for supercapacitors range from plug-in...

Rice Crop Models Stabilize Global Markets and Enable Efficient Irrigation

When global food prices spiked dramatically in late 2007 and into 2008, with the costs of many basic dietary staples doubling or even tripling, protests and riots upset...

Product of the Month

The PADS PCB Product Creation Platform from Mentor Graphics, Wilsonville, OR, is a design creation platform that provides schematic capture, component management, simulation and analysis, PCB layout and routing, and...

Advantages of Servo Motor and Direct Drive Technology

For many years, stepper motors have been the most popular type of electric motor designed into instrumentation for a wide variety of reasons. Stepper motors have become increasingly...

An Inside Look at Electromechanical Power-Off Braking Options

Power-off brakes are designed to hold or stop motion in the absence of power. Adding an electrical current releases the brake, freeing the load for motion. Given the safety...

Multiphysics CAE of a Shock Absorber

Shock absorbers are important parts of vehicles. The shock absorber is used to observe the vibrations from shock loads due to irregularities of the road surface, and operates without affecting the...

Smart Cameras Get Smarter

Cameras are the eyes of the modern world. The devices equip today’s cars and machines, and real-time imaging capabilities support law enforcement, businesses, and homeowners. Thus far, cameras have been just that:...

Delivering Industrial Reliability in Scientific Lasers

Scientific laser users have long relied on state-of-the-art performance (e.g., higher peak power, shorter pulse duration, wider wavelength tuning) to achieve groundbreaking results....

Machine Vision System Measures ‘Drops’ in Citrus Grove Health

A University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences researcher has developed a machine vision system to measure the quantity of a citrus grove’s dropped and...

Rotary Valve

RotaVal Ltd. (Wiltshire, UK) introduced a heavy-duty rotary valve for use where solids handled and operating conditions combine to cause abrasive erosion within the valve. It has on-site component replacement. The valves are used...

Voice Coil Actuator

The LAH15-19-000A linear voice coil actuator from BEI Kimco (Vista, CA) provides low hysteresis/ low friction with bi-directional position control. It is suited for applications where low friction and high force accuracy...

Compact Robot

ABB Robotics (Auburn Hills, MI) introduced the IRB 1660ID compact robot for arc welding and machine tending applications. It features a DressPack design that allows users to program and simulate predictable cable movements, a...

Block Spindle

Suhner Industrial Products Corp. Automation Division (Rome, GA) introduced the BEX8 high-speed machining block spindle capable of maintaining rigidity and precision at operations up to 25,000 rpm. The spindle weighs 33 lbs. and...

Rotary Tables

Koma Precision (East Windsor, CT) offers Tsudakoma RDS Series direct drive rotary tables that use a proprietary direct drive motor system that enables the tables to achieve high speed and acceleration with no backlash. The...

Undermount Slide

Accuride (Santa Fe Springs, CA) announced the 3135EC Eclipse Undermount Easy- Close slide. The slide offers improved full extension movement with a 100-pound load rating and 4.8 pounds of pull force. The Easy-Close action...

Pneumatic Gripper

Fabco-Air (Gainesville, FL) announced the FKHS Series 3 Jaw parallel motion pneumatic gripper for handling small parts in tight spaces. They are available in bore sizes of 25, 32, 40, 50, 63, and 80 mm. A magnetic piston is...

Positioning System

Piezoconcept (Lyon, France) offers the Hybrid System, an integrated positioning system for use with any standard inverted optical microscope. It combines a manual micrometer-driven, two-axis, linear motion stage with...

Thermal Camera

The T1030sc thermal imaging camera from FLIR Systems (Wilsonville, OR) features hardware, software, and a 1024 × 768 HD-IR detector. High-fidelity images are created using FLIR’s OSX™ Precision HDIR optics, which include an...

Customized Optical Components

Precision Glass & Optics (PG&O) (Santa Ana, CA) announced the customization of two thin-film optical components for a high-field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) accessory developed by Avotec, Inc....

Industrial Picosecond Lasers

A new generation of industrial picosecond lasers from Coherent, Inc. (Santa Clara, CA) combines high-performance and exceptional reliability in a lower-cost platform to make a wide range of precision materials...

Ultrasonic Piezo Motor Drives

Precision motion and nanopositioning systems specialist PI (Physik Instrumente) L.P. (Auburn, MA) recently released the smallest member in their miniature rotary stage series with ultrasonic piezo motor drives....

Frame Grabber

The FireBird Camera Link Deca board frame grabber from Active Silicon (Iver, UK) is now available in two form factors: a full-height version with front panel IO and a low-profile/half-height version. The low-profile design allows...

CMOS Cameras

SMARTEK Vision (New London, CT) offers the “twenty-nine” series of CMOS machine-vision cameras. Distributed by FRAMOS Technologies (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada), the 29 x 29- mm camera line fits GigE Vision and USB3 Vision with a...

Motorized Actuators

A new series of low-cost DC drive motors from Siskiyou Corporation (Grants Pass, OR) enables precise, hands-free adjustment of translation stages and mirror mounts, using a simple, push-button control pad. Specifically, the...

Stevan Spremo, Project Manager, COTSAT-1, Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA

Stevan Spremo is the project manager of COTSAT-1, or Cost Optimized Test of Spacecraft Avionics and Technologies. The ongoing development project aims to build a...

Flexibility of LVIT Technology in Factory Automation Applications

What is a Linear Variable Inductive Transducer (LVIT) and where are they used? LVITs, which have been around for more than 30 years, are relatively low-cost, contactless position...