Stories
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Products: Motion Control
Motor/Drive/Controller
Advanced Micro Controls (Terryville, CT) offers a size 17 PLC-based SMD Series integrated stepper motor/drive/controller system. The integrated solutions are suited for new machinery, retrofits, and rapid...
Articles: Communications
As Industry 4.0 initiatives bring more and more industrial axes of motion into the realm of automation, the need for cost-effective control across them grows as well. Advances in robotics,...
Products: Software
Data Acquisition Devices
The USB-1808 Series simultaneous-sampling data acquisition devices from Measurement Computing Corp., Norton, MA, provides synchronous and concurrent voltage I/O, waveform output,...
Facility Focus: Materials
Ames Laboratory is a government-owned, contractor-operated national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), operated by and located on the campus of Iowa State University in Ames, IA. For more than 70...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
The global bearings market is expected to grow significantly due to increasing commercial and industrial machinery and manufacturing activity. Bearings are used in virtually every...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Shape Memory Alloy Rock Splitters (SMARS)
Glenn's revolutionary Shape Memory Alloy Rock Splitters (SMARS) device is fabricated from nickel-titanium-halfnium (NiTiHf), nickel-titanium-zirconium compositions, or a combination. These compositions contain a secondary, nanometer-sized precipitate phase that is produced through processes of compositional...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Typical direct-injection engines, such as diesel engines, can produce soot due to fuel-rich combustion conditions. Filters and catalytic converters are currently used to reduce soot and harmful...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Engineers and software developers are seeking to create technology that lets users touch, grasp, and manipulate virtual objects while feeling like they are actually touching something in the...
Application Briefs: Automotive
Materials testing and characterization is often a lengthy process. It can take more than a year and billions of testing cycles for a manufacturer to characterize the properties of a new...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Gyroscopes are devices that help vehicles, drones, and wearable and handheld electronic devices know their orientation in three-dimensional space. Originally, gyroscopes were sets of nested wheels, each spinning on a...
Briefs: Aerospace
NASA's Langley Research Center has developed the SHEARLESS composite boom with a final cross-section shape that is lenticular and is flexible enough to allow...
Application Briefs: Test & Measurement
MarkforgedWatertown, MAmarkforged.com
The crash test dummy has come of age over many decades as the gold standard for safety testing of automobiles. Organizations like the National...
Briefs: Automotive
It is relatively easy to measure small movements of large objects, but is much more difficult when the moving parts are on the scale of nanometers, or billionths of a meter. The ability to accurately...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
NASA Langley Research Center has developed a novel optical grating device that dynamically modulates light and is capable of controlling the spectral properties and propagation of light...
Briefs: Aerospace
Gas turbine blades of conventional rotorcraft turboshaft engines are optimized to operate at nearly a fixed speed and a fixed incidence angle. If the operating condition of the engine changes, then the flow through...
Briefs: Data Acquisition
Most naturally occurring materials have a disordered atomic structure that interferes with the propagation of both sound and electromagnetic waves. When the waves come into contact with these...
Briefs: Propulsion
Researchers have developed a new propulsion concept for swimming robots that exploits temperature fluctuations in the water for propulsion without the need for an engine, propellant, or power supply.
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Reusable Breakaway Mounting Device
Breakaway devices are used to mount objects to systems or structures (for example, cars, drones, helmets, buildings) and prevent damage when the objects fall away from the system. Unfortunately, even in ideal scenarios, many of these devices have limitations. Breakaway bolts and shear pins have the complication of...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A New Twist Makes Rotating Machinery More Efficient and Quieter
Derived from a design approach for a new wing known as PRANDTL-D, this technology achieves similar improvements for propellers and other rotating machinery.
Question of the Week: Test & Measurement
Can ‘The Ocean Cleanup’ Clean Up the Ocean?
The Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit effort begun by Dutch inventor Boyan Slat, wants to clean up 50% of “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch” in five years, with the aim of a 90% reduction by 2040.
Using a 600-meter long floater, or collection platform, called System 001, the Cleanup technology acts a...
Products: Software
Optical Monitoring System
The SpectraLock Optical Monitoring System from Eddy Company (Apple Valley, CA) provides in-situ monitoring and deposition rate control to produce single- and multi-layered thin films with exacting...
Articles: Motion Control
Reliability and longevity directly impact the cost of using Q-switched, diode pumped, solid state, ultraviolet lasers in industrial applications. Damage to the intracavity harmonic crystal is often...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Piezoelectric Resonator with Two Layers
Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) filters have advantages in being able to reduce the size, weight, and power required when used as part of electronic systems such as radios; however, MEMS-type filters have limitations. For example, thickness MEMS-type filters (e.g., thickness-extensional mode...
Articles: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
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.
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Robots that are adapted to respond to physical human-robot interaction (pHRI) traditionally treat such interactions as disturbances, and resume their original behaviors when the...
Q&A: Aerospace
Professor Hopkins and University of Virginia colleagues — in collaboration with materials scientists at Penn State, the University of...
Articles: Electronics & Computers
FUTURE ANTENNA MINIATURIZATION MECHANISM: MAGNETOELECTRIC ANTENNAS
Hwaider Lin and Nian-Xiang Sun, Northeastern University, Boston, MA USA
Antenna miniaturization...
Articles: Materials
ALUMINUM-POWERED ELECTRICITY GENERATION
Aluminum has an incredibly high energy density — double that of gasoline and an order of magnitude greater than lithium-ion....
Blog: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Now Deploying from the ISS: A Harpoon, A Net, and Other Ideas for Cleaning Up Space Debris
Richard Duke spoke with Tech Briefs about the nature of the space-junk problem — and how his team plans to fix it.
Top Stories
Blog: Lighting
A Stretchable OLED that Can Maintain Most of Its Luminescence
Blog: Energy
Batteries that Can Withstand the Cold
INSIDER: Energy
Advancing All-Solid-State Batteries
Blog: Power
My Opinion: We Need More Power Soon — Is Nuclear the Answer?
Quiz: Power
Blog: Data Acquisition
Webcasts
Upcoming Webinars: Test & Measurement
From Spreadsheets to Insights: Fast Data Analysis Without Complex...
Upcoming Webinars: Defense
Cooling a New Generation of Aerospace and Defense Embedded...
Upcoming Webinars: AR/AI
Beyond AI-Copy-Paste Engineering: Advanced AI-Integration Success...
Upcoming Webinars: Automotive
Battery Abuse Testing: Pushing to Failure
Upcoming Webinars: Connectivity
A FREE Two-Day Event Dedicated to Connected Mobility
Upcoming Webinars: RF & Microwave Electronics
Choosing the Right N-Port Strategy: Multiport VNAs vs. Switch...
