Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Piezoelectric Actuated Inchworm Motor (PAIM)
Conventional piezoelectric materials, such as PZTs, have reasonably high electromechanical coupling over 70%, and excellent performance at room temperature. However, their coupling factor...
Briefs: Motion Control
Advanced Rolling Mechanics Analysis (AROMA) 1.0
AROMA uses a boundary-element formulation to calculate normal and shear pressure distributions and sub-surface stresses for elastic bodies in contact. In addition to handling static normal and sheer loading, it also solves the contact problem for rolling elements such as bearings, traction drives,...
Products: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Magnetic Encoders
POSITAL (Hamilton, NJ) introduced new models of IXARC magnetic encoders that combine incremental and absolute rotation measurement capabilities in a single, compact package. Absolute encoders provide a control system with a...
Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
Servo Drive
Elmo Motion Control (Nashua, NH) offers the NANO Gold Twitter servo drive that delivers up to 4000 Watts of qualitative power, current up to 50A at 100VDC, and up to 15A/200V with advanced servo capabilities and support for...
Products: Motion Control
Planetary Gearbox
GAM (Mount Prospect, IL) offers the SPH inline planetary gearbox with helical gears for dynamic and cyclic applications, as well highspeed and continuous duty applications. It is available in six frame sizes with nominal...
Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
Clutches
U.S. Tsubaki Power Transmission, LLC (Wheeling, IL) announced Cam Clutch unidirectional/ mechanical clutches that lock the inner and outer races through the locking action of cams, transmitting torque in one direction of rotation...
Products: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Bearings
igus (East Providence, RI) offers xiros® ball bearings with ball races made from high-performance polymer iglide® A500. The bearings are maintenance- and lubrication-free, and are designed for temperatures up to 302 °F. They are...
Products: Electronics & Computers
Linear Motors
Heidenhain (Schaumburg, IL) offers ETEL ILF and ILM series ironless high-speed linear motors for use in the semiconductor and electronics industry. The motors utilize an ironfree coil design for zero-attraction force between...
Products: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Electric Cylinder
SMAC (Carlsbad, CA) introduced the CBL50 electric cylinder designed to achieve peak force of 50N at 2 Amp current, and acceleration up to 40G. It features carriage-free design and built-in linear bearings. It is available...
Products: Motion Control
Pump Drive
The Drives & Motion Division of Yaskawa America (Waukegan, IL) released the iQpump Micro intelligent pump drive for variable-torque pump loads through 25 HP. It is available in NEMA 1 and NEMA 4X rated models. A variety of...
Products: Motion Control
Stages
Optimal Engineering Systems (Van Nuys, CA) released low-profile XYθ (theta) stages that move in an XY-plane and rotate around the center of the XY-plane. Available in 12 models in two precision grades, the stages have linear travels...
Products: Nanotechnology
Nanopositioning Stages
Aerotech (Pittsburgh, PA) offers the QNP-XY series piezo nanopositioning stages with resolution to 0.15 nm, linearity to 0.007%, and repeatability to 2 nm. The stages provide a variety of travel lengths (100 μm to 600...
Products: Medical
Coupling
C-Flex Bearing Co. (Frankfort, NY) offers a Super Plastic torsional damping coupling that stabilizes high-precision systems by dampening transient torque variations. The patented design offers high-torque loads with zero backlash...
Products: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Brushless Motor Drive
The DPFlex™ II digital, sensorless, brushless motor drive series from Allied Motion (Amherst, NY) offers speed capability to 150,000 RPM, the ability to drive lower-impedance motors, and software settable rotation...
Products: Motion Control
Motion Controller
ACS Motion Control (Bloomington, MN) released the SPiiPlusCMHV line of EtherCAT master motion controllers that can manage networks with up to 32 axes and thousands of I/Os. The modules control networks with one or two axes...
Products: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Robotic Tool Changer
The QC-160 Robotic Tool Changer from ATI Industrial Automation (Apex, NC) has a high moment capacity in a lightweight design, and features internal lock/unlock sensing and five 3/8 NPT and four ½ NPT pass-through air...
Products: Motion Control
Positioning Assemblies
UniSlide assemblies from Velmex (Bloomfield, NY) deliver movement in one, two, or three dimensions with linear motion. The systems also can be customized for specific requirements. They are compact, and the design...
INSIDER: Motion Control
NASA Demonstrates Aircraft Electric Propulsion
NASA’s Leading Edge Asynchronous Propeller Technology (LEAPTech) project will test the premise that tighter propulsion-airframe integration, made possible with electric power, will deliver...
INSIDER: Software
Second, Smaller Rotor Increases Wind Turbine Efficiency
Large wind turbine blades disturb the wind, creating a wake behind them and reducing the energy harvest of any downwind turbines. A turbine sitting in the slipstream of another can...
INSIDER: Robotics, Automation & Control
Orion's Launch Abort System Motor Exceeds Expectations
NASA has tested the attitude control motor of the Orion Launch Abort System (LAS) to prove that its material can survive not only the intense temperatures, pressures, noise, and...
Briefs: Motion Control
Developing Ceramic-Like Bulk Metallic Glass Gears
This invention describes systems and methods for implementing bulk metallic glass-based (BMG) macroscale gears with high wear resistance.
This invention creates bulk metallic glasses...
Articles: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Products of Tomorrow: March 2015
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...
INSIDER: Robotics, Automation & Control
Axle Design Enables Scalable Electric Drive for Vehicles
The future belongs to electric motors, and commercial vehicles are no exception. To date, however, many attempts to develop electric motors for commercial vehicles have stalled at the...
INSIDER: Robotics, Automation & Control
Football Stadium Stomping Helps Track Real Earthquakes
Scientists with the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network installed instruments to provide real-time monitoring of the Seattle Seahawks’ stadium movement during the 2015 NFL playoffs. The...
INSIDER: Motion Control
Octopus Robot Makes Waves with Ultra-Fast Propulsion
Scientists have developed an octopus-like robot that can zoom through water with ultra-fast propulsion and acceleration never before seen in man-made underwater vehicles. The octopus is...
Briefs: Motion Control
Evaluation of Rail Gun Technology for Launch Assist of Air-Breathing Rockets
A prototype horizontal electromagnetic rail launcher has been demonstrated along with a corresponding theory. This system builds out of published work in augmented rail guns, but modifies this technology so that the motor can operate for seconds rather than...
Briefs: Aerospace
Using Harmonics to Control Flutter in Wings with Electrical Motors
As aeronautics engineers develop innovative distributed electric propulsion systems, they face new challenges in ensuring that these innovative aircraft are safe as well as fuel efficient. In particular, these systems involve a large number of electrically driven fan motors...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Micropulse Detonation Rocket Engine for Nano-Satellite Propulsion
An efficient propulsion system would use a micropulse detonation rocket engine (–PDRE) for nano-satellite maneuverability in space. Technical objectives are to design, build, and conduct a small detonation tube experiment in order to explore the feasibility of using –PDRE for...
Briefs: Motion Control
Experimental Testbed for 1-MW Turboelectric Distributed Propulsion Aircraft
Researchers at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center are developing a concept aircraft for testing turbo-electric distributed propulsion (TeDP) experiments. TeDP generally involves providing thrust to an aircraft via wing-mounted ducted electric fans, which consist...
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