Articles

Unmanned Systems Markets: What People Are Saying 
05/16/13, William Finn, AMREL
Nobody is sure how much the DoD will decrease spending on unmanned systems, but the fear of such cuts has spurred developers to accelerate the transition to civilian applications.

Is That Robot Thinking?
05/16/13, Len Calderone for, RoboticsTomorrow
Presently, most robots are programmed to perform definite tasks and they perform them with absolute precision, but when precise movements are replaced with thoughtful movements, the robot will need to learn how to perform a task and then proceed. The robot will no longer be the precise machine that it was, but one that is prone to errors as we humans are.

Multi-application Robot Arm Is ‘Child’s Play’ To Program
05/16/13, Contributed by, Universal Robots

“Teaching the robot is child’s play, both Julian and I taught ourselves within a day,” Steve Blease continued. “The teach mode is ideal for establishing the basic approach and then it’s just a question of fine-tuning for final positioning.”

Festo's BionicOpter Mechanical Dragonfly
04/15/13, Contributed by, Festo
The mechanics of dragonfly flight are unique: dragonflies can manoeuvre in all directions, glide without having to beat their wings and hover in the air.

Food Processing Without The Human Touch
04/15/13, Len Calderone for , RoboticsTomorrow
Robotic sensory technology is now able to act in the same manner that a person does, adapting to the food manufacturing environment and utilizing vast amounts of information to give us some of the safest food in the world.

Danish Robot Reduces Cost, Optimizes Production At Precision Engineering Company
04/15/13, Contributed by, Universal Robots
Rising wages and the intricate management of the labour force have created a challenging work environment for a Singapore-based company, Sky Engineering. For a long time, this precision engineering company tried to reduce their production costs. They finally succeeded with the implementation of Universal Robots in one of their CNC machines. The UR robot was easy to integrate and the company now has the luxury of having one man tending to two CNC machines at any one time — something previously impossible to achieve when all tasks relied heavily on manual labour.

Case Study: Marathon Special Products; Plastic Deflashing Automation System
04/15/13, Contributed by, Compass Automation

The system keeps up with their presses, provides a consistent finish, and alleviates their operators even from having to select the right part program.

West Virginia University's Entry to 2013 RASC-AL Competition
04/01/13, West Virginia University
RASC-AL Exploration Robo-Ops Competition (i.e., Robo-Ops) is an engineering competition sponsored by NASA and organized by the National Institute of Aerospace. In this exciting competition, undergraduate and graduate students are invited to create a multi-disciplinary team to build a planetary rover prototype and demonstrate its capabilities to perform a series of competitive tasks in field tests at the NASA Johnson Space Center’s Rock Yard in June 2013.

New Robot Lends Precision And Reliability To The Production Of Hearing Aids

04/01/13, Universal Robots
Hearing device manufacturer Oticon needed a more flexible robot to handle the tiny hearing device components in its production. The company found the ideal solution in the six-axis robot from Danish company Universal Robots.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute's Entry to 2013 RASC-AL Competition
04/01/13, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
RASC-AL Exploration Robo-Ops Competition (i.e., Robo-Ops) is an engineering competition sponsored by NASA and organized by the National Institute of Aerospace.

Extending USB 3.0 Over Fiber For Machine Vision Applications
04/01/13, Contributed by, Icron Technologies Corporation

ExtremeUSB technology based extenders for USB 3.0 are fiber based and certified with USB3 Vision cameras, thus offering systems integrators a reliable solution when vision applications need to be extended beyond 3 meters.

FAMU/FSU College of Engineering’s Entry to 2013 RASC-AL Competition
04/01/13, Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University / Florida State University College of Engineering
RASC-AL Exploration Robo-Ops Competition (i.e., Robo-Ops) is an engineering competition sponsored by NASA and organized by the National Institute of Aerospace.

A New Class of Rogowski Coil Split-core Current Transducers

04/01/13, Pierre Turpin, LEM Renewable Energy and Automation

Until now Rogowski coils have delivered at best a 2% positioning error. With this improvement, the error due to the positioning of the conductor is specified at a maximum of 0.65% of the measured value for a 15mm diameter conductor irrespective of where it is positioned, even if it is adjacent to the coil clasp.

The RoboUtes' Entry to 2013 RASC-AL Competition
04/01/13, The RoboUtes, University of Utah
RASC-AL Exploration Robo-Ops Competition (i.e., Robo-Ops) is an engineering competition sponsored by NASA and organized by the National Institute of Aerospace.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Entry to 2013 RASC-AL Competition
04/01/13, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

RASC-AL Exploration Robo-Ops Competition (i.e., Robo-Ops) is an engineering competition sponsored by NASA and organized by the National Institute of Aerospace.

Interviews

This year, Rethink Robotics will offer a Software Development Kit that enables customers and third parties to develop unique task applications. As a result, Baxter will be more than just a robot, it will be a platform for third-party capability development—much like mobile phones and PCs are today.

Interview With FAMU-FSU College of Engineering: RASC-AL Competition
04/25/13, FAMU-FSU College of Engineering
In this exciting competition, undergraduate and graduate students are invited to create a multi-disciplinary team to build a planetary rover prototype and demonstrate its capabilities to perform a series of competitive tasks in field tests at the NASA Johnson Space Center’s Rock Yard in June 2013.

Interview With University Of Nebraska: RASC-AL Competition
04/25/13, University Of Nebraska
In this exciting competition, undergraduate and graduate students are invited to create a multi-disciplinary team to build a planetary rover prototype and demonstrate its capabilities to perform a series of competitive tasks in field tests at the NASA Johnson Space Center’s Rock Yard in June 2013.

Interview With University of Utah, "RoboUtes": RASC-AL Competition
04/25/13, University of Utah
In this exciting competition, undergraduate and graduate students are invited to create a multi-disciplinary team to build a planetary rover prototype and demonstrate its capabilities to perform a series of competitive tasks in field tests at the NASA Johnson Space Center’s Rock Yard in June 2013.

Interview With West Virginia University: RASC-AL Competition
04/25/13, West Virginia University
In this exciting competition, undergraduate and graduate students are invited to create a multi-disciplinary team to build a planetary rover prototype and demonstrate its capabilities to perform a series of competitive tasks in field tests at the NASA Johnson Space Center’s Rock Yard in June 2013.

Interview With Worcester Polytechnic Insitute, "Team Oryx": RASC-AL Competition
04/25/13, Worcester Polytechnic Insitute

In this exciting competition, undergraduate and graduate students are invited to create a multi-disciplinary team to build a planetary rover prototype and demonstrate its capabilities to perform a series of competitive tasks in field tests at the NASA Johnson Space Center’s Rock Yard in June 2013.

The Unmanned Systems Industry
04/15/13, Parag Batavia, Neya Systems, LLC

Overall the unmanned systems industry is healthy and growing, even in this fiscal climate. Commercial applications of unmanned systems in mining, agriculture, and health care continues to grow, as the robustness and maturity of unmanned systems increases.

Aerospace Automation
04/01/13, Eric Beauregard, AV&R Vision & Robotics
Even though robots are known as repeatable and not precise, many tools can be used to obtain robust and precise results such as force feedback components, vision systems, laser sensors, probing, active compliance, adaptive machining, closed-loop machining, Leica calibration, etc.

More Articles

Case Study: Robot for tool production company with 10 employees
03/15/13, Contributed by, Universal Robots 
The acquisition cost for the entire system including imaging will have paid itself off in only 10 months with single shifts. If the robot is used for 2 shifts, it will actually have paid itself off in only seven months.

Robotics In Law Enforcement
03/15/13, Len Calderone for , RoboticsTomorrow
Soon, the police won’t have to draw their guns. They will be able to just push buttons and move joysticks to capture the bad guys.

Case Study: Kawasaki Robotics Upgrade Project Proves Successful
03/15/13, Contributed by, Patti Engineering, Inc.
The Kawasaki Robotics project on the existing robotics paint system consisted of upgrading two Kawasaki robots and replacing four Kobelco robots with new Kawasaki robots.

Measurable Energy Savings in Die Casting Automation
03/15/13, Contributed by, Reis Robotics

Experience shows that it is not the robots that are the biggest energy consumers, but the entire peripheral equipment.

03/01/13, Rush LaSelle, Adept Technology, Inc
As the automation industry begins its reach into the cloud, manufacturing communities will not only improve productivity, they will begin to reclaim the prominence the industry once claimed in the economy.

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