Explore the latest developments in motion control and automation. Discover innovative advances from NASA and major research labs in robotics, autonomous vehicles, industrial automation, PID controller applications, motor drives and power transmissions.
Relying solely on motor-based force/speed curves often leads to undersized actuators and costly system delays. This white paper explores the critical gap between...
An essential question engineers ask before specifying a rotary ball spline is: Should the rotary spline nut be riding on angular contact ball bearings or crossed roller bearings?
For a robot, the real world is a lot to take in. Making sense of every data point in a scene can take a huge amount of computational effort and time. Using that information to then decide how to best help a human is an even thornier exercise. Now, MIT roboticists have a way to cut through the data noise, to help robots focus on the features in a scene that are most relevant for assisting humans. Read on to learn more.
Achieving advanced, modern motion performance often feels like a battle against physics. Designers face tradeoffs among speed, precision, and cost, while...
From packaging to life science applications to office equipment to factory automation, smooth motion, fast accelerating and highly accurate are hallmarks of high quality linear movement actuators. Together with...
Our muscles are nature’s actuators. The sinewy tissue is what generates the forces that make our bodies move. In recent years, engineers have used real muscle tissue to actuate...
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and University of Michigan have created the world’s smallest fully programmable, autonomous robots: microscopic swimming machines that can...
Although many roboticists today turn to nature to inspire their designs, even bioinspired robots are usually fabricated from non-biological materials like metal, plastic, and...
Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, Yufeng Chi is part of a team of Berkeley engineers that has developed Berkeley Humanoid Lite, a low-cost, open-source robot made of...
Leila Bridgeman and her team at Duke University Pratt School of Engineering are developing software that will improve upon existing techniques to ensure robust and safety-assured control for complex autonomous systems such as drones and medical robotics.
This white paper describes new technology that enable engineers to easily program key functions into a linear position sensor and the inductive sensing technology that makes it...
The medical industry is constantly growing, which has led to stricter requirements for medical equipment. Installation space is one particular area where designers and...
Founded by MIT alumni, the Pickle Robot Company has built machines that can autonomously load and unload trucks inside warehouses and logistic centers.
As engineering continues to shape society and drive innovation, here are the year’s top 10 engineering stories that resonated most with Tech Briefs' audience.
As robotics evolve from tools to trusted partners, their impact across industries—from manufacturing and healthcare to education and home automation—is accelerating. This white...
This whitepaper explores how to choose gearmotors for dirty and wet environments. Subject matter experts at Bodine Electric Company explain the standardized Ingress...
While growing up, many of us were fascinated by watching gears turning, whether in bicycles, clocks or garbage trucks packing trash on the old rear-load machines. Today, gearing systems play a crucial role in machinery, transmitting power efficiently and reliably across a wide range of applications. Read on to learn more.
The future of industrial autonomy will not be defined by systems that operate as opaque black boxes, but by approaches that deliberately embed the expertise of the people who know the processes best. Machine teaching makes this possible by making the skills and strategies of expert operators the foundation of AI system design. Read on to learn more.
See the new products, including NVIDIA's IGX Thor, an industrial-grade platform built to bring real-time physical AI directly to the edge; Teknic's precision planetary gearboxes; PI's L-220 series linear actuators; Compact Click dev tool from MIKROE; and more.
Robots may soon have a new way to communicate with people. Not through words or screens, but with light and images projected directly onto the world around them. University of South Florida's Zhao Han is developing technology that could transform how people interact with robots in both emergencies and everyday life. Read on to learn more.
Researchers at the University of California San Diego have developed a soft robotic skin that enables vine robots that are just a few millimeters wide to navigate convoluted paths and fragile environments. Read on to learn more.
Mechanical engineering researchers in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences think there’s another way to design robots: Programming intended functions directly into a robot’s physical structure, allowing the robot to react to its surroundings without the need for extensive on-board electronics. Read on to learn more.
A team of UC Berkeley-led researchers has developed an AI-driven framework to optimize and automate the design of complex truss robots. This approach enables designers to create robots with extraordinary capabilities while maximizing control efficiency. Read on to learn more about it.
Missions to the moon and other planets will require large-scale infrastructure that would benefit from autonomous assembly by robots without on-site human intervention. NASA Ames Research Center has developed a novel and efficient mobile bipedal robot system to construct low-mass, high precision, and largescale infrastructure. Read on to learn more.
Application Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Finland-based Metos Oy, a manufacturer of professional stainless steel kitchen equipment, needed a welding solution that could deliver flawless, pressure-rated welds for small batches of high-spec products, which feature tubular structures and circular shafts that required continuous, precision welding. Read on to find out what they did.
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