Mechatronics, like every other field of human endeavor, is undergoing rapid change driven in large part by the availability of increasingly more powerful processor technology. In the September…
Human Mobility in the Age of Mechatronics
Mobility is critical to our survival. Mobility is required to perform all the basic survival tasks in a pre-industrial culture; hunting, gathering, fishing, finding water, farming, all these require…
Electric Mobility
Electric Mobility is a broad category of things that move around using electric motors. Forklifts, wheelchairs, trolling motors for small boats, golf carts are some of the types…
Electric Mobility
Electric powered transportation takes many forms. The race among auto makers to produce a high volume, cost effective consumer vehicle is one of the hottest topics in the…
PLCs, PACs and IPCs
It seems an unlikely thing that after decades of control technology advancements we are still confused about the nature of PLCs, PACs and IPCs. In one of the…
The New Product Challenge
Large industrial product suppliers sell what they make. These companies became large because they provided equipment that many customers found useful. But as manufacturers become large, they…
The “Mech” in Mechatronics
The field of mechatronics exists as a complex collection of engineering disciplines that has boundary conditions which are set by the mechanical load or work that is required. …
Innovation and Monetization
The recent trend is use “monetize” as if it were a verb. Thus, we hear catch phrases like; “monetize new technology”. It is a term that has been…
Innovation
Innovation as a verb is the action of transforming a process or product from its current state to something new and improved. Processes, methodologies, products can all be…
Technology and Marketing
Marketing is defined as the communication of value to customers. It is intended to make us aware of products and convince of our need for the product. Sales…
Mechatronic Tips – Control technology
Control technology, like the computer technology that it comes from, is becoming more and more physically transparent. How it is deployed for use is more a function of…
Magnetism
Magnets have been in use since the time of Aristotle in 600 BC. Magnets were also being used at that time fos some type of medical treatment…
Magnetics
It is said that Einstein began his inquiry into relativity as a teenager working in his father’s electric motor shop because the Maxwell and Gauss equations did not…
Design
We are surrounded by it. Most often we associate design with graphics or web design, but it’s much more inclusive. The spaces we live in are the result of…
The Way Forward
When it comes to control product development there seems to be no middle ground between large automation vendors and small OEMs with unique product requirements. This seems incongruous…
More Than Obsolete
The legendary PLC 5 product line officially becomes obsolete this year after more than a decade of protests from customers with large installed bases of these products. This may not…
ROS must account for robots’ mechanical design
Developing a new robot design for a specific task is a major challenge. Combining traditional rotary motors and gear reducers will produce very limited results. New robot mechanical…
Robots Everywhere
The International Federation of Robotics reports another record year of robot sales in 2014. 225,000 robots were sold worldwide. 26% over the previous year. The estimated inventory of…
Complexity and Control
Complexity in the controls world is expanding exponentially. The amount of data necessary to describe the real world is staggering when fully considered. Sensors and feedback devices of…
Interoperability, Complexity, Big Data
“The unknown future rolls toward us…” as Sarah Conner put it in the Terminator sequel, and so it is with the Internet of Things. The dichotomy between hype…
Electric Motors – the Workhorse of Industry
OK, so Tesla won. The AC motor became much more popular because it turned without the need for complex and expensive speed controls. With mass production, the AC…
Electric Motors in Context
It seems odd that after over 100 years of electric motor manufacturing, we have very few people in the industry that can really ‘boil it down’ to the…
Buy or Build
When is it appropriate to build something custom or buy the next best thing that will get the job done? Manufacturers are constantly faced with this problem in…
How Big is Big Data?
Another component of the “Big Data” is what “big” really means. In the early days of the PLC an I/O map of 1024 inputs and 1024 outputs was…
Not So Big Data
“Big Data” is all the buzz in Information Technology circles and business editorials. Generally the discussion is around how we will ever be able to make meaningful use…