Connectivity Enabling Smart Manufacturing
Blog 6/17/2013 6 comments The push to achieving more intelligent, integrated manufacturing is putting a strong focus on networking and connectivity as key enabling technologies.
Improving Machine Processes & Plant Automation
Features 6/14/2013 1 comment Leading companies are embracing mechatronics, and they are experiencing the rewards of the cost savings and operational benefits of an integrated and synergistic approach to machine design.
Slideshow: Flying Robots Take Action
Blog 6/12/2013 39 comments Surveillance, reconnaissance, and search and rescue in military and first responder situations are popular applications for aerial robots. Yet not all the robots are considered unmanned aerial vehicles.
Video: Students Develop Tornado-Seeking Drones
Blog 6/10/2013 26 comments An unmanned aerial vehicle under development at Oklahoma State University can penetrate severe thunderstorms, including the supercells from which tornadoes can develop.
Video: RoboBee Finally Takes Off
Blog 6/4/2013 13 comments An engineering team at Harvard University's Microrobotics Lab has completed the maiden flight of its tiny RoboBee robot. The controlled flight of the insect-sized robot that flaps its wings is considered a robotics first.
Video: Mobile App-Driven Robot Bartender Makes, Shakes Drinks to Order
Blog 5/31/2013 23 comments Makr Shakr works like this: People download an app to their Android or iPhone mobile device, then create drink combinations. The robot makes the drinks requested with assembly-line efficiency and graceful movements modeled on two professional dancers.
Video: Seahorse Armor Inspires Robot Design
Engineering Materials 5/16/2013 5 comments Engineers at the University of California, San Diego are designing a robotic arm that takes inspiration from the loose, flexible, yet very strong structure of the armored plates on a seahorse's tail.
How to Create a Low-Pass Filter
Blog 5/7/2013 5 comments Sometimes you will not find a low-pass filter with the specifications you need in an anti-alias circuit. So you might decide to design your own. But you wonder, “Can I get the same performance I see in application notes?”
Mobile Technology’s Influence on Data Acquisition
Blog 4/30/2013 9 comments Industrial users are coming to expect mobile access to measurement data, according to an article that is part of a recently released National Instruments report.
Slideshow: Nautical Robots Go With the Flow
Blog 4/25/2013 51 comments Whether they navigate the salty seas or fresh water lakes, rivers, or oceans, many underwater robots can do a number of different types of tasks, depending on their payloads.
Maxon Introduces Mini-Servo Motor for Robot Design, Automation
Product News 4/18/2013 4 comments Maxon has added a new miniaturized OEM plug-in module to its
ESCON servo controller family line that can control permanent-magnet activated brushed and brushless DC with Hall sensors up to approximately 250W.
Video: Man-Sized Jellyfish Robot to Patrol the Seas
Blog 4/16/2013 16 comments Engineers at Virginia Tech have built a jellyfish robot prototype the size of an adult man they say will one day patrol the seas to monitor environmental conditions, study aquatic life, make maps of the ocean's floors, and perform military surveillance.
Video: Festo's Dragonfly Robot Flies, Hovers & Glides
Blog 4/12/2013 33 comments Modeled after a dragonfly, Festo's latest sophisticated robot is the BionicOpter, which can independently move each of its wings to fly in any direction, as well as hover and glide.
Manufacturing Ramps Up in the Cloud
Blog 4/10/2013 7 comments Packaged goods companies are constantly being driven to offer higher levels of variety in consumer products. The goal for manufacturers and the machinery builders serving these industries is how they can adapt to move past today’s batch processes to ultimately work toward achieving a batch size of one.
Reference Guide: Design News 2012 Salary Survey The Design News Salary Survey results are in! Download the free 2012 Salary Survey report and find out what over 1,500 engineers and engineering managers are saying about their compensation, job satisfaction, professional backgrounds, challenges in the workplace, and experience with downsizing and hiring trends. Get it now! Sponsored by Aerotek.
White Paper: Innovative Medical Adhesives Simplify and Improve Fastening in Medical Devices Modern adhesives offer medical device engineers a leg up with new options to simplify fastening and improve performance as medical devices and materials continue to advance. Master Bond’s white paper explores the advantages of well-designed structural medical adhesive compounds and their chemistries, features and properties.
White Paper: High Temperature Resistant Adhesives Beat the Heat Selecting the right adhesive product for extreme temperature applications is not as straightforward as reading temperature resistance values on data sheets. Master Bond's white paper takes a closer look at some crucial issues and key factors to consider, when your adhesive application has to beat the heat or cope with the cold.
White Paper: Thermally Conductive Adhesives Keep Things Cool Through heat dissipation, thermally conductive adhesives and potting compounds play a pivotal role in the protection of today’s electronic circuitry. Master Bond’s white paper examines the challenges design engineers face as chip makers up the ante on microprocessor power and density, and how thermally conductive adhesives and potting compounds can manage heat while solving other application issues.
White Paper: Understanding Low Outgassing Adhesives Engineers often want to know whether an adhesive is low outgassing or generic. And while there are cases when nothing but a low outgassing product will do, the truth is that many so-called generic adhesives inherently have low outgassing levels. Here's a guide to understanding when low outgassing adhesives are the right choice.
White Paper: The Business Value of Product Data Management Read how executives from Ametek Technical Products, VISA Lighting and others, were able to achieve game-changing business objectives with Product Document Management (PDM). The author, Jim Brown is the President of Tech-Clarity, an independent research and consulting firm that specializes in analyzing the true business value of software technology
Fully Integrated Motion Controllers Power Mobile, Social Robots
Features 4/5/2013 6 comments While advanced controllers have exponentially increased the number and kind of tasks industrial robots can accomplish, mobile robotics brings a new set of challenges to motion control that favors the compact, increasingly integrated motion control systems.
Robotic Advances in Aerospace Manufacturing
Blog 4/4/2013 12 comments The unique demands of aerospace and defense manufacturing are stretching robotic system suppliers to add advanced control functions to keep up the pace of innovation.
Self-Assembled Devices May Transform Manufacturing
Engineering Materials 4/3/2013 33 comments The line between materials and machines will blur when modular, self-reconfigurable robots and self-assembling engineered DNA bricks change the rules of product manufacturing.
Video: Crowdsourcing App Helps Space Agency Improve Robots
Blog 3/28/2013 19 comments A free iPhone video game app turns your Parrot AR.Drone into a simulated spacecraft, which you can use to simulate docking on the International Space Station. You get points for accuracy and speed, and the European Space Agency gets tons of data to help make better space robots.
Mitsubishi's Dexterous Robots for Factory Automation
Product News 3/28/2013 13 comments Mitsubishi has released the latest in a series of vertical-axis robots that are designed to perform particularly dexterous and complex tasks formerly operated by humans in a factory setting.
Embedding Robots Into the Process
Features 3/27/2013 6 comments Robots are increasingly being integrated into manufacturing systems by combining off-the-shelf mechanical solutions with programmable robotic safety zones.
NASA Uses Video Processing to Study Hurricanes & Wildfires
Blog 3/27/2013 12 comments Advanced video processing and networking deployed aboard NASA's Global Hawk as part of its Hurricane Severe Storm Sentinel mission use a full motion video compression appliance to provide visual situational awareness of hurricanes and wildfires.
Robot Helps People Walk Again
Blog 3/26/2013 30 comments The Ekso wearable robot applies torque to the hip, knee, and ankle joints to help people move, powered by a computer worn by the patient in a backpack.
Results: Your Opinions on a Design Ideas Forum
Engineering Materials 3/25/2013 22 comments Here's a summary of your ideas for starting a Design Ideas forum that poses design problems and asks for input from the community to help solve them in innovative ways. We also ask for a bit more feedback to help fine-tune things.
Slideshow: Robotic Hands Mimic Humans
Blog 3/22/2013 21 comments Robot R&D has focused recently on closely emulating the human ability to pick up; manipulate; and move small, delicate objects in unstructured environments outside the factory safety cage.
Slideshow: Competitors Gear Up For DARPA Robot Challenge
Blog 3/21/2013 32 comments The stage has been set for a $2 million Department of Defense competition to develop a robot that could perform a number of physical tasks that might be required to respond to an emergency.
Self-Assembly Meets 3D Printing
Engineering Materials 3/8/2013 15 comments Self-assembly and 3D printing, two technologies at the edges of manufacturing, are on the verge of coming together to make 3D-printed objects that self-assemble when stimulated by water.
Integration in Industrial Plant Control
Blog 3/8/2013 6 comments ABB’s Extended Automation System 800xA Release 5.1 includes powerful object oriented tools to model and integrate the whole life cycle of plant and product.
Andrew Morris designed a circuit that could detect a stroke victim's groan and convert the sound into a signal so caregivers would know when help was needed.
New disc magnet motors fit into the design trend of stepping up to closed loop performance while maintaining the cost advantage of stepper motor technology.
At the Design News webinar on June 27, learn all about aluminum extrusion: designing the right shape so it costs the least, is simplest to manufacture, and best fits the application's structural requirements.
On April 21, NASA launched a novel project, putting into orbit three satellites that employ an off-the-shelf commercial smartphone as the control system.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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