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Conveying: Drive system enables two synchronous movements with max performance

The new FAULHABER DualGear drive system optimizes automated warehouse logistics, enabling two synchronous, powerful movements in one compact unit. Combining a BX4 motor with two GPT planetary gearheads, it is ideal for storage/retrieval machines and autonomous logistics. Hall sensors ensure exact positioning for compact, efficient, and reliable performance in demanding, small-space environments.
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Decentralized drives offer seamless integration

NORD DRIVE-SYSTEMS' NORDAC LINK motor starters, plus NORDAC LINK and NORDAC FLEX variable frequency drives, feature a plug-and-play design for rapid commissioning and high system availability. With onboard AS-Interface (ASi) functionality, these modular products integrate seamlessly into existing or new systems, supporting ASi standards V2.0 and V3.0 with integrated follower profiles for connectivity.
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Non-Magnetic ball slides made in the USA

Del-Tron's USA-made, non-magnetic ball slides prevent magnetic interference in medical, semiconductor, military, and laser applications. Featuring silicon nitride ceramic bearings, titanium shafts, aluminum components, and brass fasteners, these lightweight slides come in seven sizes with travels from .5 to 12 in., providing an ideal solution for sensitive environments.
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What's new in robotic efficiency and advanced gauging systems?

Renishaw will highlight its latest solutions for maximizing robot performance and manufacturing efficiency at Automate 2026, taking place June 22-25 at McCormick Place in Chicago. Highlights will be demonstrations of its Robot Calibration System for cell recovery and in-field robot calibration, the Equator-X dual-method gauging system for high-throughput production environments, and position and motion control encoders.
Read the full article.

New Titanium servo-drive line for harsh environs

The Elmo advanced Titanium line of harsh-environment servo drives offers optimal performance with advanced power density, providing exceptional intelligent and compact servo drives that are operational within minutes. These single-axis and multi-axis servo drives, featuring top-performance multi-core processors, deliver superior productivity, Functional Safety, advanced networking, and local intelligence in a compact package for operation in extreme conditions.
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Top Tech Tip: Automating winding, unwinding applications

From paper mills and textiles to sheet metal and plastics manufacturing, winding and unwinding mechanisms play critical parts in many industries. Jonathan Bullick from KEB America examines the automation architecture behind industrial winding applications, with particular emphasis on motor selection, variable frequency drive (VFD) configuration, and control system design. Tension, winding loads, torque speed, regen energy, bus load sharing, and more are all addressed in this excellent technical overview.
Read the KEB America article.

3D printing and 5-axis milling get highly portable

Powered by Siemens' SINUMERIK ONE CNC platform and Ingersoll's MasterPrint^® industrial 3D printer, a new generation of deployable machines is bringing additive and subtractive manufacturing directly to the point of use for defense, disaster relief, and infrastructure and industry.
Read the full article.

Double the force capacity: New RSX50 linear actuators

Tolomatic's RSX50 is the newest, most powerful addition to the RSX Extreme Force electric actuator family. Delivering 50 tons of force within the compact footprint of its 25-ton predecessor, it offers industry-leading power density. Built with high-precision planetary roller screws, the RSX50 provides high-force reliability and environmental compliance, eliminating the mess and maintenance complexity of traditional hydraulic systems.
Get all the specs from Tolomatic.

Integrated drive system for next-gen robotics and human-like motions

Engineered for modern robotics, the BXI is FAULHABER's most powerful integrated drive. Delivering up to 20 Nm of torque, it ensures dynamic, precise control. This compact unit combines a motor, stepped planetary gearhead, and high-res encoder into one functional system. Its strength lies in systematic integration, offering maximum performance in minimal space -- ideal for humanoid robot joints and demanding applications.
Get all the specs from FAULHABER.

Important Qs about linear motor actuators that design engineers should ask

Many design engineers overestimate how accurate traditional motors and actuators stay over long travel runs, mistakenly believing that if the solution works well for short runs, it will work equally well on long ones. Do you know what type of actuator you should use for your application? Patrick Lehr, Product Manager, Precision Mechanics at Parker Hannifin, has some really good tips for you.
Read the full article.

Cobots get 4 m tall with the 8th-Axis Vertical Robot Transfer Unit

Designed to optimize industrial processes across various sectors, the 8th-Axis Vertical Robot Transfer Unit (RTU-V) from Bishop-Wisecarver features a vertical travel length of up to 4 m, enabling a single small robot or cobot to cover large areas traditionally requiring multiple robots. This innovation not only boosts productivity but also offers considerable cost savings, making it an ideal solution for industries such as logistics, manufacturing, agriculture, packaging, and more. Extended reach allows robots to perform tasks on oversized workpieces, such as rocket tubes, boat hulls, and aerospace structures, with ease.
View the video.

UR AI Trainer for robotics: First lab-to-factory AI model trainer

Universal Robots unveiled the UR AI Trainer last week. Developed in collaboration with Scale AI, the AI Trainer marks a tectonic shift as robots move from pre-programmed applications to fully AI-driven tasks. These systems are powered by robust data generated in AI training cells where robots imitate humans.
Read the full article.

BLDC motors with advanced safety features built in

Dunker-motoren has built advanced safety functions directly into its BG75 and BG95 BLDC motors, so you no longer need a separate safety controller or complex wiring. This means faster installation, lower costs, and simpler designs. With features such as safe stop and speed control, plus secure digital communication, dSafe motors are ready for automation, robotics, and mobile systems worldwide. It's safety that scales with your future.
Learn more.

Mobile robotic platform with contactless charging

MAXOLU-TION, an SEW-EURODRIVE company, has introduced the modular Mobile Robot Platform 1600 (MR P1600). It is designed to move heavy loads such as pallets through factories and warehouses, with less manual handling and more consistent material flow. The platform supports configurable load-handling options, including conveyor transfer, lift, drive-under, and precise docking, using standardized material transfer attachments or custom-engineered load handling. Max load is 1,600 kg.
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Configurable modular precision linear stages

PI's Modular Precision Linear (MPL) stage family is a configurable platform that simplifies specifying and integrating high-precision linear positioning systems. Engineers can select mechanical, drive, and feedback options online, creating application-specific stages without the cost of fixed designs. The MPL series offers 50- to 300-mm travel ranges and servo or stepper motor options -- with linear motors planned for future release -- while maintaining high precision, stiffness, and reliability.
Learn more.

Working electric motor made with non-metal coils!

KIST has developed a technology for producing high-quality carbon nanotubes (CNTs). This technology dramatically improves the electrical conductivity of CNT coils, allowing them to drive electric motors without the need for copper coils. [Credit: Korea Institute of Science and Technology]

Dr. Dae-Yoon Kim and his team at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) Composite Materials Research Institute have succeeded in constructing the coil of an electric motor using only carbon nanotubes (CNTs) without any metals -- and realizing the device to the point where it can actually run.

The team conducted experiments by applying the coil made of CNTs to the motor and found that the revolutions per minute (RPM) of the motor could be stably controlled according to the input voltage. This demonstrates that the basic operation of a motor, which converts electrical energy into mechanical rotational force, can be accomplished without metal windings. Until now, metals such as copper have been used as the main material for coils due to their high electrical conductivity, but it has been consistently pointed out that they have various limitations, such as difficulty in securing resources, price volatility, and weight problems due to high density.

CNTs are one-dimensional, tube-shaped nanomaterials with carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal honeycomb structure. They are known to be much lighter than ordinary metals, while at the same time possessing excellent electrical conductivity, mechanical strength, and thermal conductivity. These properties have long attracted attention as a next-generation material, but CNTs have faced a number of barriers to real-world industrial applications.

One of the technical obstacles with CNTs is the residue of catalyst metals used during the manufacturing process. This residue remains as metallic particles on the surface of CNTs, degrading their electrical properties, which are directly related to motor performance, making it difficult to utilize CNTs in high-performance components.

The KIST team has made a real breakthrough by developing a new CNT purification process that utilizes the alignment principle of liquid crystals, a "fourth state of matter" known as the intermediate state between liquid and solid. The process naturally resolves strong aggregation during the alignment of CNTs, effectively removing metallic particles that remain on the surface.

Most importantly, the new process is able to selectively remove impurities without damaging the nanostructure of the CNTs, making it distinctly different from existing liquid- and gas-phase-based purification methods. The purified CNTs show a significant improvement in conductivity, which can be brought to a level that can be applied to uses such as in electric motors.

The motor's winding "wires" are made of a CNT core wrapped with a polymer insulating sheath. [Credit: Korea Institute of Science and Technology]

The CNT motor made by the researchers was able to run a small toy car. A paper describing the technology was published in Springer Nature. The paper states the rotor was filled with coils wound from nine parallel 30-cm-long core-sheath composite electric cables (CSCECs), with each winding consisting of 10 turns. The rotor was "assembled together with brush, commutator, and stator. This metal-free motor was directly contacted with the digital tachometer under no-load conditions, and the rotational velocity was recorded in revolutions per minute (RPM) by varying the voltage."

The researchers increased the RPM of the metal-free motor from 540 to 3,420 within the range of 2 to 3 V. According to the paper, "The metal-free motor with CSCECs maintained a consistent RPM at least 60 min. of operation, when 2.0 W, 2.5 W, 3.0 W, and 3.5 W of electric power were applied." The researchers said the same size electric motor was tested that used copper windings (3 parallel 30-cm-long copper wires ), and it topped out at 18,120 RPM at 3 V -- much more powerful than the motor that used carbon nanotubes. However, the copper-based motor was also much heavier (about five times as heavy), so you can quickly see the tradeoffs. The electrical conductivity of the copper-based cables was reported as "7.4 times higher than that of CSCECs," with the little test car reaching a speed of 1.35 m s^-1 powered by a 3-V battery. Using the motor with the carbon nanotube windings, the car speed was 0.52 m s^-1 powered at 3 V.

The researchers also tested their CNT motor windings using their new purification process vs. CNT cables made without the process, with the new technology the clear winner. The new process increased the electrical conductivity of CNT wires by 133%.

The electric motor with CNT coils exhibits a specific rotational speed depending on the voltage application. [Credit: Korea Institute of Science and Technology]

The researchers posed an important question in their paper when they asked, "Will CNTs ever be able to compete with metallic materials for next-generation advanced cables?" From a density perspective, they say the use of CNTs has a lot of advantages. The weight of the CNT wires (78.75 mg) was about one-fifth that of the copper wires (379.08 mg). The researchers conclude, "Therefore, the difference in specific rotational velocity is only 1.06-fold, from 43.4 RPM mg^-1 for electric motors made with CNT wires to 47.8 RPM mg^-1 for those made with copper."

So, if the electrical conductivity for the CNT motor can be increased, this type of motor could well have some serious advantages, since a common technical challenge for future transportation is lightweighting, whether that be for electric vehicles, drones, or even spacecraft. Electric motors in particular are an essential component of most electric mobility vehicles, and coils account for a large proportion of the total weight of the motor.

"Based on the innovation of CNT materials, we will take the lead in localizing materials such as conductive materials for batteries, pellicles for semiconductors, and cables for robots," said Dr. Dae-Yoon Kim of KIST.

We encourage you to check out the researchers' paper here to review all of their results.

Source: Korea Institute of Science and Technology

Published June 2025

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