Motion Control

Medical Crash Cart Goes Robotic

Medical crash carts — stocked with medications, syringes, gauze, and IV fluids — are essential tools in emergency rooms, where seconds matter, space is tight, and confusion can cost lives. However,...

Teaching Robots to Serve Humans

Over the past decade, robots have become an increasingly important part of our daily lives. Autonomous vehicles shuttle us from point A to point B, drones deliver lifesaving medicine to remote towns, sidewalk...

Brain-Like Computer Steers Rolling Robot With 0.25 Percent of the Power Needed by Conventional Controllers

Analog computing is making a comeback with hardware that processes and stores information in the same location, similar to biological...

Mid-Air Transformation Helps Flying, Rolling Robot to Transition Smoothly

Specialized robots that can both fly and drive typically touch down on land before attempting to transform and drive away. But when the landing terrain is rough,...

Flying Robots Unlock New Horizons in Construction

An international team led by researchers from Empa and EPFL has explored how aerial robots could precisely process construction materials in the air — an approach with great potential for...

Nimble Dimples: Agile Underwater Vehicles Inspired by Golf Balls

A spherical prototype that can change its surface from smooth to dimpled, cuts through drag and generates lift. Underwater or aerial vehicles with dimples like golf balls...

Soft Sensing, Self-Healing Materials for Robotic Hands and Arms

These materials can detect when they are damaged, take the necessary steps to temporarily heal themselves, and then resume work.

Gaining a Competitive Edge with Functionally Integrated Components

Machine builders are under intense pressure to keep engineering time in line with shorter delivery schedules and materials, assembly, and inventory cost considerations. Machine builders are also striving to make equipment smaller, lighter, higher-performing, and easier for their customers to maintain. While functionally integrated products have been available for a long time, they are more vital today than ever. And there are more options available to provide solutions. Read on to learn more.

New Products

See the new products, including PI's V-141 linear motor stage family; Applied Motion's STF Stepper Drives and SSDC StepSERVO Drives, which are now UL Certified by Underwriters Laboratories; Arnold Magnetic Technologies Corporation's Brushless DC Permanent Magnet Motors; ICONICS's release of GENESIS, a new platform that leverages ICONICS’s decades of software development expertise; and more.

Tape-Based Robot Reaches Far When Extended

It’s a game a lot of us played as children — and maybe even later in life: unspooling measuring tape to see how far it would extend before bending. But to engineers at the University of California San Diego, this game was an inspiration, suggesting that measuring tape could become a great material for a robotic gripper. Read on to learn more about their robot, GRIP-tape.

Open to Possibilities: How Controls Have Evolved to an Open Architecture

While there may be some manufacturers who are hesitant to transition to a more open control landscape for fear of abandoning a proven method of operation, it’s clear that a collaborative approach through apps is the future. Read on to learn more.

Ping Pong Bot Returns Shots with High-Speed Precision

The new table tennis bot comprises a multijointed robotic arm that is fixed to one end of a ping pong table and wields a standard ping pong paddle. Aided by several high-speed cameras...

Soft Robot Can Carry Cargo Up and Down Steep Aerial Wires

Researchers have created a light-powered soft robot that can carry loads through the air along established tracks, similar to cable cars or aerial trams. The soft robot operates...

Eldercare Robot Helps People Sit and Stand, and Catches Them If They Fall

The United States population is older than it has ever been. Today, the country’s median age is 38.9, which is nearly a decade older than it was in 1980. And the...

Remotely Moving Objects Underwater Using Sound

Sound can do more than just provide a nice beat. Sound waves have been used for everything from mapping the seafloor to breaking apart kidney stones. Thanks to a unique material structure,...

Product Focus: Class 1 Laser Line Scanner Delivers Vision with Sub-Millimeter Depth Precision

SiLC Technologies (Monrovia, CA) unveiled Eyeonic Trace for the first time at Automate 2025. A Class 1 Laser Line Scanner, Eyeonic Trace is an...

Tech Focus: Robots That Think and Act on the Fly at Moving Assembly Line Speeds

In the race to bring automotive manufacturing back home, the general assembly shop, the most manual and unpredictable stage of vehicle production, remains the...

Safety in Motion: Setting the Standard for Humanoid Robots

With AI advancements, hardware improvements, and a lot of media attention, humanoid robots are gaining significant momentum in the industry. Safety of these robots, however, is too...

Product Focus: Güdel Introduces Swiss Quality Tracks for Cobots

At Automate 2025, Güdel Inc. (Ann Arbor, MI), is highlighting two new technologies — Cobomover™ and a modular track system — that demonstrate its ability to solve...

Tech Focus: Advancing Inline Quality Control with High-Precision 3D Metrology

A new state-of-the-art robot-assisted 3D inspection and metrology system designed for real-time quality control in manufacturing, is being showcased by senswork...

Product Focus: An AI-Ready Automation Controller with Built-In Cellular Connectivity

Montreal-based Vention, creator of the full-stack software and hardware automation platform, recently announced the commercial availability of its powerful...

Beyond the Hype: The Real Impact of Robotics in Manufacturing

While AI-driven robotics is driving greater efficiency and productivity, the manufacturing sector still faces several challenges that need to be addressed. How can manufacturers prepare for this new era of automation? Ujjwal Kumar, Group President, Teradyne Robotics, one of the keynote speakers at Automate 2025, shares his insights about the future of automation.

How Much Do You Know About Servo Systems?

Without servo systems, there would be no automated factories. Since they’re so common, this quiz ought to be easy. Try it and see. How much do you know about servo systems? Test your knowledge with this quiz.