Articles: Motion Control
Direct drive servo motor and drive technology has many advantages. It reduces an axis’ parts count, mechanical losses, and often its objectionable noise. What’s more, it also increases...
Articles: Motion Control
Actuators have always been on the frontline of automation, providing the “push and pull” that extends human capabilities to operate everything from delicate pick-and-place applications to...
Briefs: Motion Control
Origami robots are composed of thin structures that can fold and unfold to change shape. They are compact and lightweight, but have functional restrictions related to size, shape, and how...
Products: Motion Control
Brushless AC Servo Motors
Allied Motion Technologies (Amherst, NY) introduced the HeiMotion™ Premium (HMP) brushless AC servo motor family. The motors, which have a 20,000+ hour life span, are available in five metric frame...
Briefs: Motion Control
Inspired by arthropod insects and spiders, Harvard professor George Whitesides and Alex Nemiroski, a former postdoctoral fellow in Whitesides’ Harvard lab, used ordinary plastic drinking straws to create...
Articles: Motion Control
Electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) in frequency converters can be very problematic if not addressed properly in the initial design. EMC ensures the proper operation of devices to avoid negative...
Briefs: Software
Anew network protocol — the Multi Node Label Routing (MNLR) protocol — was developed to improve the information flow between emergency responders at the scene of an incident and decision-makers at the office of emergency management.
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
One-dimensional conductive particle assembly holds promise for a variety of practical applications; in particular, for a new generation of electronic devices....
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
In many manufacturing and construction activities, it is frequently necessary to remove a protrusion of material from a component or from a substrate surface. These removal operations include clipping the...
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
A voltage detector chip was developed that requires only a few trillionths of a Watt (picowatts) to activate other circuits, enabling engineers to design sensors that continuously listen, without...
News: Propulsion
The solid-core axle and gearbox shafts on commercial trucks are targeted for weight reduction in an ongoing research project sponsored by two industry groups.
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Engineers have developed a simple method for producing high-quality graphene that can be used in next-generation electronic and energy devices. The method essentially bakes the compound in a...
Briefs: Software
A reporting tool was needed that could indicate the accuracy of search results by tracking the number of clicks required by users to find their desired search results. The application should also capture the number of times other links and like filtering components are clicked. The report should have the...
Briefs: Green Design & Manufacturing
A team of researchers has invented a new technology to produce automobile tires from trees and grasses. Conventional car tires are viewed as environmentally unfriendly because they are...
Product Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
The Crest-to-Crest Wave Spring Series from Smalley (Lake Zurich, IL), which features the company’s C (imperial) and CM (metric) Series, has been expanded. Standard sizes are now available from stock down to 0.188 in and 5...
Articles: Energy
Intelligent controls are continuing to reshape commercial vehicles, giving operators more functions and more space while also improving safety. Increasingly more powerful...
Briefs: Software
Android is the primary software platform for mobile, networked devices such as tablets and smartphones. These devices are increasingly used for safety-critical functions that require verification of correct and robust behavior of applications. Such software written for the Android operating system is hard to test because applications are...
NASA Spinoff: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Spinoff is NASA's annual publication featuring successfully commercialized NASA technology. This commercialization has contributed to the development of products and services in the...
News: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
To address the disadvantages mainly in the traditional manufacture of diaphragm accumulators, Freudenberg Sealing Technologies (Weinheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany) developed a new approach—one that...
Briefs: Software
Google Maps and Google Earth allow the development of customized displays, but such displays must be constructed by a software developer. The Flood Dashboard allows non-technical users to utilize a simple Web form to build and present custom displays. It is a Ruby on Rails 4 application that allows users to build custom...
News: Propulsion
Known for its compact diesel engines below 100 hp (75 kW), Kubota unveils its first diesel engine above that threshold, the 5-L V5009 with an output of 210 hp (157 kW) at 2200 rpm. The...
Briefs: Software
A typical data warehouse may contain thousands of tables. Validating the data quality of all data warehouse content is an unmanageable and unmaintainable task if handled in an ad-hoc fashion. This software seeks to ensure that a data warehouse accurately reflects the...
Facility Focus: Defense
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was created with a national sense of urgency in February 1958 amidst one of the most dramatic moments in the history of the Cold War and the...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
The first entirely 3D-printed organ-on-a-chip with integrated sensing has been built by a fully automated digital manufacturing procedure. The 3D-printed heart-on-a-chip can be quickly...
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
NASA's Langley Research Center researchers have developed a wireless, connection-free inductor capacitor sensor system that can be placed on or embedded in materials and structures to monitor...
Briefs: Software
A network geolocation technology (NGT) can be used to determine the physical location of a networked Internet user, as well as accurately determine if an Internet user is in fact in the metropolitan service area...
News: Test & Measurement
Low Speed Pre Ignition (LSPI) is an abnormal combustion event with the potential to cause catastrophic damage to pistons and related components in downsized engines.
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Fluorocarbon-based fire extinguishing agents are environmentally harmful since they cause depletion of the Earth's ozone layer. Fine Water Mist (FWM)-type systems have very favorable characteristics as...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Materials that can be produced by 3D printing include not just plastics, but metal, glass, and even food. A new system called a Digital Construction Platform (DCP) was...