Stories
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INSIDER: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Five-axis machine tools are computer-numerically controlled (CNC) machines that can move, cut, or mill a part on five different axes at the same time. Because of inherent...
INSIDER: Motion Control
Researchers in Lausanne, Switzerland have determined that a bipod gait is the fastest and most efficient way for six-legged robots to move on flat ground, provided they don’t have the adhesive...
INSIDER: Materials
Engineers and scientists at the University of Texas at Austin and the AMOLF institute in the Netherlands have invented mechanical metamaterials that transfer motion in one direction...
Question of the Week: Robotics, Automation & Control
Will telepresence drones take off?
This week’s Question: According to a recent application made public last week, Google is hoping to patent a "mobile telepresence system." The proposed drone is designed for collaboration with colleagues from remote locations. The technology will fly indoors and move from room to room, adjusting to unpredictable...
Application Briefs: Software
Broadcasting employs the latest technology in many areas, but controlling the broadcast hardware connected to the antenna and the related transmission power, source, and facilities is usually still a...
Articles: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
With an increased focus on plant productivity and equipment reliability, Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems have become vital tools to reduce downtime while increasing asset...
Articles: Robotics, Automation & Control
Gears play an essential role in precision robotics, and they can become a limiting factor when the robots must perform in space missions. In particular, the extreme temperatures of deep space pose...
Articles: Motion Control
Couplings are a critical part of system performance in high-tech applications, yet they are often one of the last components to be specified. Selecting the proper coupling ensures the equipment will meet...
Articles: Motion Control
Many small motor applications, such as robotics, industrial equipment, and consumer products, employ digital incremental encoders for feedback sensing. Encoder selection is therefore an important part of the...
Briefs: Motion Control
The Yale-CMU-Berkeley (YCB) Object and Model Set provides universal benchmarks for labs specializing in robotic manipulation and prosthetics. About two years ago, Aaron Dollar, an associate professor of...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Inspecting the condition of dykes and other sea defense structures is typically a task for a team of robots. They consume a lot of energy to move across the dykes, perform tests, and communicate the...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
The Mars 2020 coring drill will generate a significant amount of dust and debris (known as fines) due to the volume of milled material displaced by the corer’s annulus. These cuttings must be removed to ensure...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Actuators are a critical driver of all the mechanisms used in space, and improvements of their operation mechanism enhance...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Researchers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC), in collaboration with General Motors and Oceaneering, have designed a state-of-the-art, highly dexterous, humanoid robot: Robonaut 2 (R2). R2...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Roboticists at the University of California, Berkeley, have designed a small robot that can leap into the air and then spring off a wall, or perform multiple vertical jumps in a row, resulting in...
Briefs: Motion Control
A group of researchers at Osaka University, Kobe University, Tohoku University, The University of Tokyo, and Tokyo Institute of Technology developed construction robots for disaster relief that solve the...
INSIDER: Medical
Designing a soft robot to move organically — to bend like a finger or twist like a wrist — has always been a process of trial and error. Now, researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson...
INSIDER: Software
A team of researchers from the Polytechnic University of Bari, Italy, is working to improve how industrial electric drives operate. They propose a new control scheme that will not only...
Articles: Motion Control
Positioning: Resolution and Accuracy
An application’s required positioning resolution dictates the choice of encoder resolution. A well-tuned system can maintain the position within one encoder state...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Improving Stirling Engine Performance Through Optimized Piston and Displacer Motion
Stirling engines typically achieve high efficiency, but lack power density. Low power density prevents them from being used in many applications where internal combustion engines are viable competitors, and increases system costs in applications that require...
Briefs: Motion Control
Mechanisms for Achieving Non-Sinusoidal Waveforms on Stirling Engines
The current state-of-the-art Stirling engines use sinusoidal piston and displacer motion to drive the thermodynamic cycle and produce power. Research performed at NASA Glenn has shown that non-sinusoidal waveforms have the potential to increase Stirling engine power density, and...
INSIDER: Motion Control
A robotic capture module system prototype was built to help NASA engineers understand the operations required to collect a multi-ton boulder from an asteroid’s surface. The hardware...
INSIDER: Motion Control
Inspecting the condition of dikes and other sea defense structures is typically a task for robots, working in a team and in a highly autonomous way. But if they move around across the dikes,...
INSIDER: Motion Control
Boosting the fuel efficiency of motor vehicles by “harvesting” the energy generated by their shock absorbers and feeding it back into batteries or electrical systems such as air...
INSIDER: Software
Machine-Learning System Recognizes Sounds from Video
A machine learning system from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recognizes sounds by watching video. The neural network interprets natural sounds in terms of image categories, without hand-annotated training data.
Products: Photonics/Optics
MICROMO (Clearwater, FL) announced the FAULHABER high-precision IER3 and IERS3 optical encoders. Both encoders deliver two-channel quadrature signals and an additional index signal. They can position a FAULHABER micro DC motor...
Products: Motion Control
Yaskawa Motoman (Dayton, OH) expanded its line of RM2 ferris wheel-style robotic part positioners. The positioners have two servo-driven trunnion/station axes on opposite sides of a central “sweep” axis. One station is...
Products: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Sandvik Coromant (Fair Lawn, NJ) introduced the CoroPlus™ platform for connecting manufacturing tools and software. The platform gives users access to product and application data through connected software and...
Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
Rethink Robotics (Boston, MA) introduced Sawyer, a smart collaborative robot designed to execute machine tending, circuit board testing, and other precise tasks. The robot modifies its behavior to respond to changing and...
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
News: Energy
Blog: Design
Blog: Design
Webcasts
Upcoming Webinars: Test & Measurement
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Upcoming Webinars: Test & Measurement
Beyond AI-Copy-Paste Engineering: Advanced AI-Integration Success...
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Battery Abuse Testing: Pushing to Failure
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A FREE Two-Day Event Dedicated to Connected Mobility
Upcoming Webinars: Test & Measurement
Choosing the Right N-Port Strategy: Multiport VNAs vs. Switch...
