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Simplify pick and place with the THK PPR

THK's Pick-and-Place Robot PPR is a robot that can pick up delicate or minute workpieces such as electronic components and quickly and accurately transfer and assemble them to the base. In addition to the basic movements of raising, lowering, and rotating, various sensors (such as a force sensor), solenoid valves, and controller are all in one unit. The PPR is a process-optimized robot that can improve the production speed of the parts assembly processes and reduce work damage.
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New ROBOMACHINE products and more from FANUC

FANUC America demonstrated the future of manufacturing at IMTS 2026 last week, showcasing how Physical AI-powered automation integrates advanced CNC, machining, and robotics to boost productivity and speed deployment. One highlight was the debut of the ROBODRILL DC Series machining centers -- including the high-speed D54CS and D74CS models -- alongside interactive demonstrations featuring collaborative robots, robotic welding, material joining, painting, and assembly technology.
See all the FANUC new tech featured at IMTS.

What is a stick-slip bi-phase positioning stage?

PI (Physik Instrumente) is expanding its Bi-Phase Inertia Drive (BIX) technology with new motor architectures for compact, high-precision nanopositioning applications. Based on the piezo stick-slip principle, BIX stages replace conventional single actuators with two synchronized multilayer piezo actuators. This compact design delivers precise, repeatable motion while maintaining piezo inertia self-locking.
Learn more about this technology.

Universal Robots unveils Gen 7 robot platform!

Redesigned from controller to tool flange, the new Gen 7 robot platform is out-of-the-box AI-ready, giving companies the modern software tools and next-level connectivity they need to confidently take AI from the lab into industrial operations. Gen 7 represents a unified system upgrade designed to make even the most demanding tasks and setups easier. See all the new features -- they are significant.
Read the full article.

Adaptor mount and hub options provide flexibility

Zero-Max's new CD Power-Series Flexible Shaft Couplings feature ISO Flange Adaptors matching ISO 9409-1 patterns on gear reducers and robotics. Eliminating custom transitions, this direct connection enhances torsional stiffness and positioning accuracy while saving space, weight, and inertia. Offering continuous torque up to 65,000 in.-lb and versatile hub options, these compact couplings deliver high power density.
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Top-shelf motors: Completely revised maxon catalog

maxon has completely overhauled its 2026/2027 catalog, streamlining its portfolio to reduce complexity and improve navigation. The new structure features dedicated sections for business units -- Medical, Aerospace, Industrial Automation, Mobility -- and specialized fields like Robotics and Space. Key product highlights include new ECX PRIME and ECX FLAT motors, GSW planetary gearheads, and ESCON2/EPOS4 controllers.
Learn more and check it out.

Custom stators, rotors, and motor assemblies for low- to mid-volume applications

Arnold's Ramco Electric Motors is your single partner for custom motor components and complete assemblies. Ramco builds solutions for AC induction, switched reluctance, and brushless DC designs up to 200+ HP. Capabilities include custom stators, rotor-shaft assemblies, aluminum and copper casting, induction brazing, permanent magnet assembly, and precision rotor balancing.
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Rotate robot arms more than 600 degrees

The unsupported twisterchain^® from igus eliminates the need for additional trough systems or guide plates in robotic applications, especially in palletizing. This results in a clean, efficient, and space-saving system architecture that delivers both technical and economic advantages. Thanks to its specialized design, it supports rotations of over 600 degrees.
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Match the torque of rotary solenoids to your application

Magnetic Sensor Systems has launched the Made in USA R-10-200-CWM Series of clockwise rotary solenoids. Measuring 2.00 in. in diameter and 1.04 in. long with 18 different AWG options and a serrated front shaft end, these compact units optimize torque, current, and duty cycle. When power is removed, an integral return spring automatically returns the shaft to its home position. The shaft is supported by two high-precision radial ball bearings, providing smooth operation with no axial play. Applications include medical, security, and office equipment.
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Planetary servo gear unit: New economy series

SEW-EURODRIVE has expanded its PxG planetary servo gear unit portfolio with the new PxG economy series, introducing the P1.G, P2.G, and P3.G performance classes. Designed for standard industrial automation applications like packaging and material handling, these cost-effective units feature peak torque ratings from 11 to 500 Nm and over 20,000 hours of service life, helping machine builders eliminate unnecessary over-specification.
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Compact hexapod 6-DOF alignment system has overload protection

PI's compact H-811.I2HS hexapod delivers precise 6-DOF motion with patented overload protection, simplifying setup and operation in OEM applications. This built-in protection safeguards precision mechanics during installation and integration against accidental forces or improper handling. Furthermore, the hexapod mounts in any orientation, granting system designers exceptional flexibility for optical, photonics, microscopy, metrology, and automation systems.
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What is STUDROLLER technology? Cross Roller Guides

NB SLIDE WAY cross roller guides use precision rollers to provide stable, non-recirculating linear motions in precision stages, inspection equipment, semiconductor manufacturing, and more. At the heart of all NB cross roller bearings is the STUDROLLER mechanism, which eliminates the cage-creep phenomenon that, over time, can create deviances in cross roller retainer performance. NB cross roller guides equipped with this system are more accurate and better performing than any other comparable products on the market today. High acceleration and faster cycle times are possible in any orientation.
View the video.

Ruggedized Nano servo drives for harsh environs

Copley Controls has released its R47 and R48 NanoPlus Micro Module servo drives. Designed for extreme environments and space-constrained applications, these rugged platforms operate from 9 to 180 VDC, delivering peak power up to 6.3 kW. Offering CANopen (R47) or EtherCAT (R48) communications, both feature STO SIL 3 safety and broad encoder support. Well suited for COTS military, nautical, aviation, oil refining, and vehicle-based systems.
Learn more.

Simplify AC motor control with the new OMRON M1 Inverter

The OMRON M1 Inverter simplifies machine design by unifying motion, safety, networking, and motor control into a single platform. Available in M1-STD, M1-ECT, and M1-EMP models, it controls IM and PM motors with high precision. Featuring SIL3 PLe STO safety and native EtherCAT, EtherNet/IP, or RS-485 communications, the M1 accelerates development within the Sysmac environment.
Learn more.

Flexible planetary gearheads: Quiet, extremely robust

FAULHABER GPT gearheads for miniature and micro motors deliver high power density, exceptional flexibility, and excellent cost efficiency. Designed for seamless integration with diverse motors and encoders, these compact planetary drives feature hardened stainless steel components that reliably withstand extreme torques and abrupt load changes. Offered in standard, low-noise, and high-torque variants, they ensure precise, durable performance across wide operating temperature ranges.
Learn more.

Engineers design motorless sailplanes for Mars exploration

Aerospace engineering doctoral student Adrien Bouskela (left) and aerospace and mechanical engineering professor Sergey Shkarayev hold an experimental sailplane. They hope to one day send a custom version of a similar plane to Mars. [Credit: University of Arizona College of Engineering]

 

 

 

 

Eight active spacecraft, including three operated by NASA, orbit Mars, gathering imagery of the planet's surface at a resolution of about 1 ft per pixel. Three rovers traverse the ground, mapping small areas of the planet with greater precision. But what lies in the hundreds of kilometers between the rovers and the orbiters -- including atmospheric climate processes and geological features like volcanoes and canyons -- is often of most interest to planetary scientists.

"You have this really important, critical piece in this planetary boundary layer, like in the first few kilometers above the ground," said Alexandre Kling, a research scientist in NASA's Mars Climate Modeling Center. "This is where all the exchanges between the surface and atmosphere happen. This is where the dust is picked up and sent into the atmosphere, where trace gases are mixed, where the modulation of large-scale winds by mountain-valley flows happen. And we just don't have very much data about it."

Kling is partnering with a team of University of Arizona engineers that aims to fill this data gap by designing a motorless sailplane that can soar over the Martian surface for days at a time, using only wind energy for propulsion. Equipped with flight, temperature, and gas sensors as well as cameras, the sailplanes would weigh only 11 lb each. The team details its proposal in a paper published in the journal Aerospace.

The flight of the albatross
Flight on Mars is challenging due to the planet's thin atmosphere, and this is not the first team to try addressing it. Most notably, NASA's Ingenuity is a 4-lb helicopter that landed in Mars' Jezero Crater in 2021. With miniaturized flight technology and a rotor system span of about 4 ft, it's the first device to test powered, controlled flight on another planet. But the solar-powered vehicle can fly for only three minutes at a time, and it reaches heights of just 12 m, or about 39 ft.

"These other technologies have all been very limited by energy," said the paper's first author, Adrien Bouskela, an aerospace engineering doctoral student in UArizona professor Sergey Shkarayev's Micro Air Vehicles Laboratory. "What we're proposing is just using the energy in situ. It's kind of a leap forward in those methods of extending missions. Because the main question is: How can you fly for free? How can you use the wind that's there, the thermal dynamics that are there, to avoid using solar panels and relying on batteries that need to be recharged?"

The Mars sailplanes will contain a custom-designed array of navigation sensors, as well as a camera and temperature and gas sensors to gather information about the Martian atmosphere and landscape. [Credit: University of Arizona College of Engineering]

 

 

 

 

Lightweight, low-cost, wind-powered sailplanes may be the answer. The planes, which have a wingspan of about 11 ft, will use several different flight methods, including simple static soaring when sufficient vertical winds are present. But they can also use a technique called dynamic soaring, which, like an albatross on a long journey, takes advantage of how horizontal wind speed often increases with altitude -- a phenomenon particularly common on Mars.

Dynamic soaring looks something like the S-shaped pattern skiers use to control their descent down a mountain. However, every time the sailplane changes directions, it also begins changing altitude -- and rather than slow the sailplane down, the maneuver helps it gain speed. The planes fly at a slight upward angle into the slow-moving, low-altitude wind. When they reach the faster, high-altitude wind, they turn 180 degrees and let the high-speed wind power them forward at a slight downward angle. When they start to run out of energy from the high-speed wind, they repeat the process, weaving their way forward. With this nimble maneuvering, the sailplanes can continually harvest energy from the atmosphere, flying for hours or even days at a time. This is flying for free.

"It's almost something you have to see it to believe," said paper co-author Jekan Thanga, a UArizona associate professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering.

Current rovers have mostly captured images of Mars' flat, sandy plains -- the only areas where the rovers can safely land. But the sailplanes would be able to explore new areas by taking advantage of how wind patterns shift around geologic formations such as canyons and volcanoes.

"With this platform, you could just fly around and access those really interesting, really cool places," Kling said.

Good things come in small packages
The team proposes sending the sailplanes to Mars as a secondary payload on a larger mission. Thanga is examining how to deploy the sailplanes from the spacecraft into the atmosphere. On the spacecraft, the sailplanes will be packaged in CubeSats, miniature satellites not much larger than a phonebook. Once the CubeSats are launched and the planes released, the planes would either unfold, like origami, or inflate, like high-tech pool floaties, and rigidize at their full size.

The team conducted a tethered launch of an early version of the sailplane, in which it descended slowly to Earth attached to a balloon. [Credit: University of Arizona College of Engineering]

 

 

 

 

The team is also exploring the possibility of a balloon or blimp carrying the sailplanes into the atmosphere. This would slow the sailplanes' descent and allow them to take off when wind conditions are optimal or when they approach a high-interest area. The sailplanes could even potentially redock on the balloon or blimp after a flight and go on to complete multiple missions.

Flight ends, mission continues
After landing on the Martian surface, the planes would continue to relay information about the atmosphere back to the spacecraft, essentially becoming weather stations. Meteorologists can predict weather on Earth with relative accuracy in part because there are weather stations all over our planet that form a network of information, and all the data they gather is continually fed back to predictive models. So, each Mars sailplane that retired from flying -- whether it completed its exploration as planned or something went wrong -- could become another all-important node in this network.

"If we run out of flight energy, or if our inertial sensors suddenly fail for whatever reason, we expect to then keep doing science," Bouskela said. "From the planetary science perspective, the mission continues."

The team has done extensive mathematical modeling for the sailplanes' flight patterns based on Mars climate data, and there's still more research to do about flight trajectories, potential docking systems, and more. This summer, they will test experimental planes at about 15,000 ft above sea level, where Earth's atmosphere is thinner and flight conditions are more akin to those on Mars.

"We can use the Earth as a laboratory for studying flight on Mars," Shkarayev said.

The team ultimately hopes NASA will fund the mission and allow it to "catch a ride" on a large-scale Mars mission already in development. The low-cost nature of the sailplane effort means it could come to fruition relatively quickly, Kling said, perhaps in years rather than the decades needed for a full-scale mission.

Source: University of Arizona College of Engineering

Published August 2022

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