Magazine

Thermal Management for Off-Highway Electric Vehicles

As demand increases for electric and hybrid technology advancements in the North American market, off-highway vehicles are subject to many challenges. These range from vibration and shock impacts on the vehicles, to thermal stress and adverse environmental conditions such as water, ice, humidity, dust, and grime. Read on to learn how to mitigate these threats.

Next-Generation Binder for Lithium-ion Batteries

In a recent study published in the journal ACS Applied Energy Materials, researchers have utilized poly(vinylphosphonic acid) (PVPA) as a binder for a micro-SiO electrodes, achieving superior performance compared to conventional cells. Read on to learn more.

Testing the Engineering Limits for eVTOL Battery Power

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are taking cleaner transportation to the skies by creating and evaluating new batteries for airborne electric vehicles that take off and land vertically. Read on to learn more.

Recyclable ‘Water Batteries’ That Won’t Catch Fire

A global team of researchers and industry collaborators led by RMIT University has invented recyclable ’water batteries’ that won’t catch fire or explode. Read on to learn more.

Cobalt-Free Electrodes Achieved with Nickel Ions

A team of researchers from Japanese and French universities has developed a practical nickel-based electrode material that opens new avenues to cobalt-free batteries for electric vehicles. Read on to learn more.

New Products

See the new products, including Nexperia's latest Energy Balance Calculator, StoreDot's new I-BEAM XFCTM concept, Bourns Inc.'s latest miniature resettable thermal cutoff device series, Rohde & Schwarz's wireless battery management system technology, Weidmuller USA's rugged battery connectors, Littelfuse Inc.'s overtemperature detection platform, and more.

EV Energy Management Powers Up

Future electric vehicles will be more efficient, more powerful, and will be able to hold more energy in their batteries than today’s EVs. Those big “mores” require countless small improvements beyond the headline component — batteries. Read on to learn more.

Improving Surveying Efficiency by Using Robots and Precision Positioning

In partnership with Point One, Civ Robotics is ensuring that precise construction layouts won’t be at odds with efficiency. Land surveying is a critical stage in the construction layout process, during which workers use various forms of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) to mark specific locations for builders. Read on to learn more.

Pioneering Precision: The Fusion of AI Vision and Cobots in Manufacturing

The integration of collaborative robots, or cobots, into manufacturing has revolutionized traditional processes, offering an unprecedented blend of precision, productivity, and safety. Now, with advancements in AI and visual detection systems, cobots are evolving further, equipped to adapt their actions based on visual cues. Read on to learn more.

Remote Robot Monitoring and Error Recovery Boosts Integrator Capacity, Slashes Downtime

When a robot cell experiences unplanned downtime, John Bridgen’s first priority as Director of Customer Satisfaction at Precision Cobotics is finding out exactly what happened. Traditionally, this “root cause analysis” and subsequent debugging has required onsite visits and, at least initially, a degree of guesswork. Read on to learn how the process has been ameliorated.

Using Machine Learning to Teach New Tricks to ANYMal Robot

ANYmal has for some time had no problem coping with the stony terrain of Swiss hiking trails. Now researchers at ETH Zurich have taught this quadrupedal robot some new skills: it is proving rather adept at parkour. ANYmal is also proficient at dealing with the tricky terrain commonly found on building sites or in disaster areas. Read on to learn more.

ChatGPT Enables Roboticist to Choreograph Flying Robots

Professor Angela Schoellig from the Technical University of Munich uses ChatGPT to develop choreographies for swarms of drones to perform along to music. An additional safety filter prevents mid-air collisions. Read on to learn more.

Mapping Gravity with Motion Control

As it turns out, motion control can not only help map the world — it might even make it a safer place. Read on to learn how and why.

Manufacturing Materials to Bring Bio-Inspired Robots to Life

In bringing bio-inspired robots to life, scientists must first create soft matter counterparts that match the softness and functionality of biological tissue. University of Nebraska–Lincoln engineer Eric Markvicka is at the forefront of these efforts. Read on to learn more.

Deep Learning Models Enable Robotic Motion

MIT engineers are aiming to give robots a bit of common sense when faced with situations that push them off their trained path. They’ve developed a method that connects robot motion data with the “common sense knowledge” of large language models, or LLMs.

Octopus-Inspired Suction Mechanism for Robots

A new robotic suction cup which can grasp rough, curved, and heavy stone, has been developed by scientists at the University of Bristol. The team, based at Bristol Robotics Laboratory, studied the structures of octopus biological suckers, which have superb adaptive suction abilities enabling them to anchor to rock.

New Products

See the new products, including Kollmorgen's latest update to its AKD2G Servo Drive, Teledyne FLIR IIS's Bumblebee® X series, Emerson's Movicon.NExT™ HMI/SCADA, Pleora Technologies' expanded eBUS Edge GigE Vision software transmitter solution, Bodine Electric Company's 12 new AC inverter-duty hypoid hollow shaft gearmotors, Linear Servo Motor from Moticont, and more.

Modular Design Strategies Reinforce Electric Actuator Selection over Hydraulics

When electromechanical actuator designers began integrating electronics inside their housings, it gave a control and efficiency advantage that opened the door to applications that had long been the sole domain of hydraulics cylinders. Those same electronics, coupled with recent experience applying electric actuators in new applications, now enable a modular design strategy that makes customizing electric actuators easier, further enhancing their advantages over hydraulics.

AI-Powered Optical Inspection Can Find Nanoscale PCB Defects

Most PCB manufacturers use automatic optical inspection (AOI) to monitor defects in their printed circuit boards. This delivers strong results when there are defects in the soldering, connections, pads, and traces on printed boards.

Heating Buildings with Solar Energy Stored in Sand

Affordable thermal storage could help industries and cities capture heat that is currently wasted, as well as balance the inconsistencies in wind and solar power output. But while Polar Night Energy is eager to work directly with potential customers, they realize that the challenges ahead are too big for them to tackle alone.

New Adhesive Tape Easily Picks Up and Sticks Down 2D Materials

A research team from Kyushu University, in collaboration with Japanese company Nitto Denko, has developed a tape that can be used to stick 2D materials to many different surfaces, in an easy and user-friendly way.

Hyper-Distributed RFID Antenna (HYDRA) System

Innovators have developed a method and apparatus to multiplex Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) signals efficiently. The resulting Hyper-Distributed RFID Antenna (HYDRA) system enhances distribution of the RFID reader signal, providing improved coverage for large areas as well as for small, fixed regions requiring a high density of reader antennas.

Self-Powered Sensor for Harvesting Magnetic Energy

Because it requires no battery that must be recharged or replaced, and because it requires no special wiring, such a sensor could be embedded in a hard-to-reach place, like inside the inner workings of a ship’s engine. There, it could automatically gather data on the machine’s power consumption and operations for long periods of time.

Low-Voltage, Low-Power Pressure Sensors for Monitoring Health

Researchers have found ways to develop soft OECTs for wearable pressure sensors. They first experimented with a solid type of gating substance: a charged, gelatinous substance called an ionic hydrogel. Read on to learn more.

A Novel Technique to Create Energy-Efficient Microelectronics

Microelectronics face a key challenge because of their small size. To avoid overheating, microelectronics need to consume only a fraction of the electricity of conventional electronics while still operating at peak performance. Researchers have achieved a breakthrough that could allow for a new kind of microelectronic material to do just that.

Essential Control and Visualization, Combined

Modern PLC+HMI platforms have overcome weaknesses of older devices and now provide a top-performing and space-optimized option for designers to implement control and visualization for a variety of diverse applications.

Thicker, Denser, Better Electrodes May Hold the Key to Advanced Batteries

The improved method for fabricating battery electrodes may lead to high-performance batteries that would enable more energy-efficient EVs, as well as such benefits as enhancing power grid storage, according to Hongtao Sun, Assistant Professor of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at Penn State.

An Efficient and Cost-Effective Solution for Battery Recycling

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have improved on approaches that dissolve a battery in a liquid solution in order to reduce the amount of hazardous chemicals used in the process.

An All-Liquid Iron Flow Battery for Better Energy Storage

Flow batteries can serve as backup generators for the electric grid. Flow batteries are one of the key pillars of a decarbonization strategy to store energy from renewable energy resources. Their advantage is that they can be built at any scale, from the lab-bench scale, as in this PNNL study, to the size of a city block.