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What can you do with touchless magnetic angle sensors?

Novotechnik has put together an informative video highlighting real-world applications for their RFC, RFE, and RSA Series touchless magnetic angle sensors. You may be surprised at the variety of off-highway, marine, material handling, and industrial uses. You'll learn how they work (using a Hall effect microprocessor to detect position) and their key advantages, including eliminated wear and tear on these non-mechanical components. We love when manufacturers provide such useful examples.
View the video.

What can the new Autodesk Inventor AI Assistant do for you?

Autodesk Assistant brings industry-specific context to help execute tasks and orchestrate actions across your 3D models -- not just answer questions. Designed to understand your workflows, Assistant appears as a dockable panel alongside your Inventor workspace and includes the ability to perform complex tasks or gather information from your designs without writing a single line of code. Find out what this new AI "colleague" can do for you.
Watch this informative Autodesk video.

Useful! Snap-together LED enclosure lighting

Seifert StripLite SL 4000 Series LED enclosure lighting provides bright illumination to 700 lumens. On/off switch and motion sensor models are available. Easily daisy chain up to 16 light strips. Magnetic or clip mounting. See video/info on website or contact Bristol Instruments for more information.
Learn about snap-together lighting.

Next-gen multi-touch panels

Beckhoff's Next line of multi-touch control panels and panel PCs is engineered for demanding human-machine interface and control tasks. These panels offer convenient operation with advanced multi-touch technology, a high-quality look and feel, anti-glare and anti-ghosting effects, and a wide choice of formats (from 7 to 23.8 in.) and options. A main draw is the line's attractive pricing.
Learn more.

Most powerful handheld 3D laser scanner on the market

Creaform, a business of AMETEK, has launched HandySCAN 3D|EVO Series, the most powerful handheld 3D laser scanning solution on the market. This innovative series features a built-in touchscreen display and an integrated high-res 12-MP photo camera, incorporating augmented reality (AR) and advanced on-scanner visualization. Users can streamline repetitive inspections and enhance quality control processes using the new auto-alignment feature. Powered by 46 blue laser lines with accuracy of 0.020 mm. The Creaform Metrology Suite includes four application software modules: Scan-to-CAD, Inspection, Automation, and Dynamic Tracking. So many more features.
Learn more.

Continental develops first sensor to measure heat in EV motors

Global automotive supplier Continental has developed a new sensor technology that measures the temperature inside permanently excited synchronous motors in electric vehicles directly on the rotor for the first time.
Read the full article.

LEDs with highest output power available

The new OCI-460 SWIR LED series from EPIGAP OSA Photonics features markedly improved output power compared to the company's previous OCI-480 package and all competitive SMD SWIR LED devices. For example, model OCI-460 ID1550-XS operates at 1,550 nm and features drive current up to 1.5A to deliver approximately 13% higher output efficiency over EPIGAP's OCI-480 package. This impressive advancement features 96% higher output power compared to any other SWIR SMD LED currently on the market. Ideal for use in sensing, machine vision, and more.
Learn more.

AI and collaboration in SOLIDWORKS

Discover AURA, the new AI assistant built into SOLID-WORKS, in this informative video from TriMech Group. What can AURA do for you? It can streamline workflows and make collaborating on and tracking projects even easier, for starters. Other top features of SOLIDWORKS Design 2026 are also covered. Some good tips here.
View the TriMech Group video.

Solutions for weighing and force measurement

Automation-Direct now offers Sensy 2172L series single point, 5510 series shear beam, and 2782 series tension/compression load cells that deliver flexible solutions for weighing and force measurement. They are ideal for applications ranging from small packaging scales to rugged industrial tanks and conveyor systems. Built from aircraft-grade aluminum or stainless steel, these models feature built-in overload protection, accuracies down to 0.03% of full scale, protection ratings up to IP67, and capacities up to 2,000 kg.
Learn more.

Top Product: Future-proof enclosure cooling

Seifert's new SLIMLINE NEO ushers in next-generation industrial cooling with natural refrigerant R290 (GWP 0.02) and high-efficiency inverter technology. It cuts energy costs with EER up to 3.6, reduces refrigerant charge by 75%, and extends electronics life. A fully redesigned, lighter, smaller enclosure delivers lower vibration, better component protection, and easier handling. Available in two elegant surfaces: stainless steel and mild steel, powder coated.
Learn more.

Coin cell supercapacitors: High capacity, quick release

Coin cell supercapa-citors are compact, high-capacity energy storage devices that rapidly charge and discharge and endure far more cycles than rechargeable batteries. They're ideal for high switching loads such as real-time clock and battery back-up power, battery-swap ride-through, and LED or audible alarms. SCHURTER's latest versions support up to 5.5 V and 100 to 1,500 mF.
Learn more.

Tech Tip: Mastering sheet metal bend calculations in Onshape

Mastering bend calculations in sheet metal design is a key skill that can impact the accuracy and manufactur-ability of your designs significantly. Explore the various options available to become a pro in this Onshape Tech Tip: K Factor, bend allowance, and bend deduction, with guidance on when each should be used. You will probably learn something even if you don't use this software.
Read the Onshape blog.

Digital Engineering: How a private jet gets a high-end refurb

Ever wonder how private jets get overhauled from standard OEM layouts to exotic, artful interiors? It takes engineering expertise, specialty design skills, and true craftspeople. Increasingly, it also takes automation provided by middleware to weave a digital thread through CAD, BOM, ERP, and PDM software.
Read the full article.

How AI is quietly transforming simulation

Is AI really useful, or is it just a passing trend? Balavignesh Vemparala, an R&D Engineer II at ANSYS, lays out a compelling case for how artificial intelligence is already hard at work in the simulation world with real results for users. From faster solves to accelerated workflows, improved quality and traceability, generative models, and more, discover what you might be overlooking when it comes to real-world AI application. Worth the read.
Read this informative ANSYS blog.

All about photoelectric sensors

From counting boxes on a conveyor and ensuring precise packaging and labeling to the automatic doors you walk through daily, learn all about photoelectric sensors and the options available from AutomationDirect. Did you know there are four main types? Familiarize yourself with their constructions, capabilities, and their main pros and cons. A good basic primer or refresh.
View the AutomationDirect video.

Photonic chip integrates sensing and computing for incredibly fast machine vision

Researchers have developed a new intelligent photonic sensing-computing chip that can process, transmit, and reconstruct images of a scene within nanoseconds. [Credit: Wei Wu, Tsinghua University]

 

 

 

 

Researchers have demonstrated a new intelligent photonic sensing-computing chip that can process, transmit, and reconstruct images of a scene within nanoseconds. This advance opens the door to extremely high-speed image processing that could benefit edge intelligence for machine vision applications such as autonomous driving, industrial inspection, and robotic vision.

Edge computing, which performs intensive computing tasks like image processing and analysis on local devices, is evolving into edge intelligence by adding analysis and decision-making driven by artificial intelligence (AI).

"Capturing, processing, and analyzing images for edge-based tasks such as autonomous driving is currently limited to millisecond-level speeds due to the necessity of optical-to-electronic conversions," said research team leader Lu Fang from Tsinghua University in China. "Our new chip can perform all these processes in just nanoseconds by keeping them all in the optical domain. This could be used to significantly enhance, or even replace, the traditional architecture of sensor acquisition followed by AI post-processing."

In Optica, Optica Publishing Group's journal for high-impact research, the researchers describe the new chip, which they call an optical parallel computational array (OPCA) chip. They show that the OPCA has a processing bandwidth of up to 100 billion pixels and a response time of just 6 nanoseconds, which is about six orders of magnitude faster than current methods. They also used the chip to create an optical neural network that integrates image perception, computation and reconstruction.

"The chip and optical neural network could boost the efficiency of processing complex scenes in industrial inspection and help advance intelligent robot technology to a higher level of cognitive intelligence," said Wei Wu, co-first author of the paper. "We think it could also revolutionize edge intelligence."

Eliminating optical-to-electrical conversions
Machine vision, which uses cameras, image sensors, lighting, and computer algorithms to capture, process, and analyze images for specific tasks, traditionally involves converting optical information into digital electrical signals using sensors. These signals are then transmitted over optical fibers for long-distance data transmission and downstream tasks. However, the frequent conversion between optical and electrical signals along with limited advancements in electronic processors has become a major restriction on improving the speed and processing capacity of machine vision.

"The world is entering an AI era, but AI is very time and energy exhaustive," said Fang. "Meanwhile, the growth of edge devices, such as smartphones, intelligent cars, and laptops has resulted in explosive growth of image data to be processed, transmitted, and displayed. We are working to advance machine vision by integrating sensing and computing in the optical domain, which is particularly important for edge computing and for enabling more sustainable AI applications."

The challenge in performing both image acquisition and analysis on the same chip in the optical domain is finding a way to convert the free-space spatial light used for imaging into an on-chip guided light wave. The researchers achieved this by designing a chip that consists of a sensing-computing array of dedicated designed ring resonators that convert a free-space optical intensity image -- a 2D representation of a scene's light intensity -- into a coherent light signal that can then be guided on the chip. A micro-lens array enhances the process by focusing the scene onto the OPCA chip.

The photo shows light being focused through the microlens array onto the micro-ring in the OPCA chip test system. [Credit: Wei Wu, Tsinghua University]

 

 

 

 

The chip's architecture allowed the researchers to create an end-to-end, multi-wavelength optical neural network to couple the on-chip modulated light into a large-bandwidth optical waveguide, where the modulated light is added together spectrally. The multispectral optical outputs can then be used for classification tasks or to create an all-optical reconstruction of the image.

"Because each sensing-computing element of this chip is reconfigurable, they can each operate as a programmable neuron that generates light modulation output based on the input and weight," said Fang. "The neural network connects all the sensing-computing neurons with a single waveguide, facilitating an all-optical, full connection between the input information and the output."

The researchers say that for practical use, the optical neural network's processing capacity would need to be increased to effectively handle increasingly complex and realistic intelligent tasks. The form factor of the OPCA chip and overall form factor also need to be minimized.

Sources: Optica Publishing Group, Tsinghua University

Published June 2024

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