2020 LEAP Awards winners announced!

Winning entries in the 2020 LEAP (Leadership in Engineering Achievement Program) Awards were announced by WTWH Media today in 12 categories:

Additive Manufacturing
Connectivity
Embedded Computing
Hydraulics
Industrial Automation
Mechanical
Motion Control
Pneumatics
Power Electronics
Software
Switches & Sensors, and
Test & Measurement.

These brands cross four of the company’s design engineering brands: Design World, Fluid Power World, Fastener Engineering, and EE World. This year’s winners were chosen by an independent judging panel of 14 engineering and academic professionals. For each category, judges could award Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Honorable Mentions, but note that all categories do not necessarily have all of these medalists, based on the scoring. The winners are:

Additive manufacturing

Gold
3DEO
Intelligent Layering®

The judges commented: “One of the most challenging parts of metal AM is the post processing required. To integrate the CNC milling into the process. Should really help 3D Metal parts move from prototype to production.” Congratulations!

Silver
HP
3D High Reusability PP

Bronze
MakerBot
MakerBot METHOD X 3D Printer

Connectivity

Gold
Silicon Labs
Secure Vault: World’s Most Advanced Security for IoT Devices

The judges commented: “A new contemporary solution to an ever-evolving problem.” Congratulations!

Silver
ON Semiconductor
Connected Lighting Platform for high-power industrial LED lighting solutions

Bronze
TE Connectivity
Thermal Bridge Technology

Honorable Mention
C&K
Interposer board-to-board connector series

Embedded computing

Gold
Xilinx, Inc.
Xilinx Versal AI Core

The judges commented: “A game changer for the next generation of networking electronics, medical imaging diagnostic instruments and any application needing state-of-the-art processing power.” Congratulations!

Silver
Texas Instruments
Jacinto™ 7 processors

Bronze
Lattice Semiconductor
Lattice CrossLink-NX™ FPGA

Hydraulics

Gold
Gates Corporation
GC20™ with Gates® Cortex™ Intelligence

The judges commented: “Hydraulics is many times a function of tribal knowledge. Now, this knowledge is at a user’s fingertips. And the price-point is fantastic!” Congratulations!

Silver
Schroeder Industries
TNK7 Complete Plastic Tank Solution

Bronze
Sun Hydraulics
CANpoint™ XMD Configuration Software

Industrial automation

Gold
Universal Robots
ActiNav – Autonomous Bin Picking for Machine Tending

The judges commented: “This invention is clearly one of the best designs that has come along in a long time. Applications for picking various types of parts and placing the parts without a secondary orientation has been a battle with prior art.” Congratulations!

Silver
FUTEK Advanced Sensor Technology, Inc.
Digitally Configurable Analog Voltage Amplifier

Bronze
Microchip Technology Inc.
Microchip Smart Embedded Vision Initiative

Honorable Mention
Cognex Corporation
In-Sight D900

Honorable Mention
OnRobot
Screwdriver

Honorable Mention
YXLON International
YXLON UX20 – The Easy Inspection

Mechanical

Gold
R+W Coupling Technology
Shaft Coupling Provides Wireless Torque, Speed, Vibration and Force Data

The judges commented: “Adding to the Intelligent Coupling with an inductive power supply makes this a fantastic advancement for the future. For lab use and product development, this simple method of collecting real-time data and recording events will be very valuable.” Congratulations!

Silver
ElectroCraft, Inc.
MPW 52 Integrated Wheel Drive

Bronze
Bison Gear & Engineering
VFsync Permanent Magnet AC Motors Fill the Gap Between Induction and Servo Motors

Motion control

Gold
WITTENSTEIN
World’s First Self-Monitoring Gearbox

The judges commented: “Predictive Maintenance! Problems can be identified before failure, or even significant degradation can occur. Hardware can now ‘speak’ as to its status.” Congratulations!

Silver
Moog Inc.
EMATS compact electric multi-axis test system

Bronze
Akribis Systems USA
Akribis-Agito Central-I

Honorable Mention
Ultra Motion
AM Servo Cylinder with Phase Index

Honorable Mention
Bosch Rexroth
IMScompact

Pneumatics

Gold
Festo
Intelligent Energy Savings Module MSE6-C2M

The judges commented: “Great energy saving product! Leveraging historical data, or data mining gives the customer situational awareness.” Congratulations!

Silver
Clippard
Eclipse Proportional Isolation Valve

Bronze
Emerson
ASCO Series 273 Pneumatic Pinch Valve

Power electronics

Gold
Cornell Dubilier
Cornell Dubilier PPC Series 1mm-Thin Polymer Aluminum Electrolytic Capacitor

The judges commented: “A game changer for what is typically a stubborn design problem to solve in major product integration and footprint shrink. The flexible shape feature opens up a whole new set of possibilities in product design for what is often a very large part called for in the Bill of Materials.” Congratulations!

Silver
Weidmuller Inc.
PROtop Power Supply

Bronze
Texas Instruments
UCC12050: TI’s proprietary integrated transformer technology shrinks power solutions up to 80%

Software

Gold
Lattice Semiconductor
Lattice Propel Design Environment

The judges commented: “Lattice structures create enormous potential in the area of design for additive manufacturing.” Congratulations!

Silver
CADENAS
3DfindIT.com by CADENAS

Bronze
Mentor, A Siemens Business
Tessent LEAP award for Observation Scan

Switches & sensors

Gold
Monnit Corporation
ALTA Advanced Edge Gateway

The judges commented: “Task oriented, sensor centric approach provides an innovative product making it accessible to small business and price sensitive applications. Ease of deployment rather than conformity to large complex system constraints is a welcomed approach.” Congratulations!

Silver
Microchip Technology Inc.
Microchip Switchtec™ PAX Advanced Fabric Gen 4 PCIe Switches

Bronze
FUTEK Advanced Sensor Technology, Inc.
Nano Force Sensor

Test & measurement

Gold
Riedon
SSA Smart Shunt

The judges commented: “A major product footprint shrink, more stable over temperature, major increase in measurement accuracy lives up to the claim of ‘game changer.’ Easy installation and integration of the measurement system is a winning combination.” Congratulations!

Silver
Rohde & Schwarz
R&S®RTP high-performance oscilloscope

Bronze
Schroeder Industries
Schroeder Pro: Total Fluid Health

Congratulations to all of the winners! Next year’s LEAP Awards nomination process will officially open on May 3, 2021. A winner logo can be downloaded here, or for an .eps version, please email VP, Editorial Director Paul Heney at pheney at wtwhmedia dot com.