Stories
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Products: Imaging
Cable Carrier
igus, East Providence, RI, offers the E4.1L general-purpose energy chain (e-chain) cable carrier with high dynamics that includes a honeycomb strain relief block. It also includes separators for quick...
Briefs: Motion Control
The unique capabilities of soft robots are to bend, deform, stretch, twist, or squeeze in all the ways that conventional rigid robots cannot. Today, it is easy to envision a world in...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Today's crop breeders are trying to boost yields while preparing plants to withstand severe weather and changing climates. To succeed, they must locate the genes for high-yielding, hardy traits in crop plants’...
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Hydraulic-Based Spherical Robot
Current spherical robots rely upon rotating mechanical weights inside the sphere to change the center of gravity of the sphere, causing the robot to roll. The use of rotating mechanical weights is not optimal due to the reliance upon moving parts, which can present burdensome maintenance issues. It would be...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Liquid metal printing is integral to the flexible electronics field. Additive manufacturing enables fast fabrication of intricate designs and circuitry. The field features a...
Question of the Week: Test & Measurement
A Role for Cell-Sized Robots?
Today's lead INSIDER story highlighted cell-sized robots developed by a team at MIT. The researchers say the nanobots could someday support oil-pipeline inspection or medical diagnostics.
Blog: Photonics/Optics
Researchers at MIT have created cell-sized robots that may someday be used to inspect and analyze hard-to-reach locations, from oil pipelines to the human body.
Blog: Materials
Talking about your feelings can be difficult. Now imagine if you’re a robot.
Podcasts: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Engineers today are using their creativity to build a variety of superhero-like technologies that enhance our human capabilities, including exosuits, invisibility cloaks, and wall-scaling gloves.
What drives...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Active Response Gravity Offload System
NASA has used two systems to train astronauts for weightlessness. The first is the Reduced Gravity Simulator that suspended the astronaut at an angle of 80.5 so that only 1/6th of his or her weight was supported by the ground, while the rest was supported by a pulley system. The other system, designed during...
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Recent findings indicate that frequent, short-term crew exposure to elevated CO2 levels, combined with other physiological impacts of microgravity, may lead to a number of...
INSIDER: Motion Control
An aerial robot capable of altering its profile during flight paves the way for a new generation of large robots that can move through narrow passages, making them ideal for exploration as well as search and...
Articles: Photonics/Optics
Step motors are widely used in automation due to their high resolution, precision positioning, minimal control electronics, and low cost. As an open loop system, traditional...
Briefs: Materials
An eel-like robot was developed that can swim silently in salt water without an electric motor. Instead, the robot uses artificial muscles filled with water to propel itself. The...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Actuators are used in a wide variety of electromechanical systems and in robotics, in applications such as steerable catheters, aircraft wings that adapt to changing conditions, and wind turbines...
Application Briefs: Imaging
Vision-guided robotics commonly used in today's automotive plants enables robots to “see” the object they are working on so they can perform the required activity accurately on/to an object that is not...
Podcasts: Robotics, Automation & Control
Some conditions are too dangerous, or just too mundane, for people.
Articles: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
In recent years, cable management has come into the limelight because machine reliability has increased dramatically, even though robots have grown more complex. Unfortunately, the methods...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Polymer-Based 2D-to-3D Transformable Surfaces
Technologies using stretchable materials are increasingly important. Yet, in general, it is not possible to control how they stretch with much more sophistication than inflating balloons. A method was developed that allows the calculated transformation of 2D stretchable surfaces into targeted 3D shapes.
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Soft robots inspired by nature can crawl, swim, grasp delicate objects, and even assist a beating heart, but none of them has been able to sense and respond to the...
Briefs: Medical
A “4D printing” method was developed for a smart gel that could lead to the development of living structures in human organs and tissues, soft robots, and targeted drug delivery.
News: Medical
Robotics are increasingly find a role in patient rehabilitation. But are the technologies safe?
Question of the Week: Robotics, Automation & Control
Will 'jet-powered' feet support search-and-rescue applications?
Tech Briefs TV this week featured research from the Guangdong University of Technology in China: A team of engineers developed a ducted-fan propulsion system that drives the legs of a bipedal robot. Watch the video, and let us know what you think.
Briefs: Motion Control
Scientists around the world are working on new technologies for the nanofactories of the future, which one day could be used to analyze biochemical samples or produce active medical agents. The required miniature...
Briefs: Medical
Because of their high precision and speed, Delta robots are deployed in many industrial processes, including pick-and-place assemblies, machining, and welding. Delta...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
A technique was developed to prevent cross-coupling in systems where two or more linear electromechanical actuators (EMAs) are rigidly connected, and are in danger of becoming...
Application Briefs: Aerospace
A600-pound spider-like robot, called Spidernaut, was part of a prototype robot team built in 2005 to assemble a solar array on the Moon. The goal was not only to have robots do the manual...
Articles: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Industrial robots play an essential role in manufacturing, from assembly, to pick-and-place, to packaging. One of the major risks of robotics — and what OEMs seek to mitigate — is...
Articles: Motion Control
Rotary encoders play important roles in motion control and industrial automation systems, providing control systems with information about the motion of motor shafts,...
Top Stories
Blog: Lighting
A Stretchable OLED that Can Maintain Most of Its Luminescence
News: Energy
INSIDER: Energy
Advancing All-Solid-State Batteries
Blog: Energy
My Opinion: We Need More Power Soon — Is Nuclear the Answer?
Blog: Robotics, Automation & Control
Aerial Microrobots That Can Match a Bumblebee's Speed
Blog: Communications
Microscopic Swimming Machines that Can Sense, Respond to Surroundings
Webcasts
Upcoming Webinars: Transportation
Advantages of Smart Power Distribution Unit Design for Automotive...
Upcoming Webinars: Unmanned Systems
Quiet, Please: NVH Improvement Opportunities in the Early Design...
Upcoming Webinars: Test & Measurement
From Spreadsheets to Insights: Fast Data Analysis Without Complex...
Upcoming Webinars: Aerospace
Cooling a New Generation of Aerospace and Defense Embedded...
Upcoming Webinars: AR/AI
Beyond AI-Copy-Paste Engineering: Advanced AI-Integration Success...
Upcoming Webinars: Test & Measurement
