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Inbolt launches vision-enabled Robot Programming, closing the loop from CAD to factory floor

Inbolt is launching two new capabilities that complete the company's AI Vision Model for robot guidance at Automate 2026 in Chicago, June 22-25. With Robot Programming and Robot Control, Inbolt covers the full path from virtual commissioning to adaptive robot motion control, for stationary and moving-line applications. It's one platform from perception to motion -- on the robots manufacturers already own.
Read the full article.

Top Tech Tip: How to specify electric rod-style actuators for optimal performance, reliability, and efficiency

The engineers at Tolomatic provide their Top 10 Tips for specifying electric rod-style actuators, which have a higher initial cost, more advanced design, and more predictable performance compared to fluid power cylinders. This is a really thorough presentation filled with useful information.
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High-precision multi-axis motion platforms

Motion Solutions delivers high-speed, high-accuracy XY scanning solutions optimized for OEM integration. These rigid, modular platforms provide stable, repeatable multi-axis motion control, ensuring faster throughput and precise positioning for advanced workflows. Ideal for automated microscopy, digital pathology, and spatial biology, the scalable design supports flexible travel lengths and custom configurations to seamlessly optimize your system.
Learn more.

What is the best palletizing option for your operation?

Is your business looking to install or upgrade a palletizing system, but you don't know where to start? Marc Giguère from Robotiq does a comprehensive run-through of options including a fully engineered system, a cobot, or a plug-and-play setup. A lot depends on your production volume, budget, available space, and need for flexibility. Systems are compared and contrasted. Fastest ROI? The best lean system? What works for high throughput? Find out these answers and more, complete with an available buyer's guide chart.
Read the Robotiq article.

Robotic machine tending for CNC mills and lathes

At IMTS 2026, Mitsubishi Electric Automation will feature live demonstrations of LoadMate Plus and ARIA, two pre-engineered robotic machine tending solutions designed to help manufacturers automate CNC mills and lathes with confidence, flexibility, and scalability. LoadMate Plus is designed for quick setup and long-term deployment at a single machine. ARIA is a compact, configurable, and mobile solution for mill and lathe tending in space-constrained environments.
Learn more.

What's a ceramic motor-driven linear actuator?

PI, a global leader in precision motion control and nanoposi-tioning solutions, provides a large selection of piezo ceramic linear actuators for different size, speed, and force applications. At the top end of the force spectrum is the N-216 PiezoWalk Linear Actuator, a high-load, high-precision linear actuator designed for applications that require many millimeters of travel, high force, and extremely stable nanometer-class positioning. PiezoWalk technology offers significant advantages over traditional motorized actuators in precision, stability, and energy efficiency. Its non-magnetic drive principle and strong radiation-environment performance provide additional benefits.
Learn more.

KUKA robots accelerate solar panel installation

It can be tough to find manpower to help build large solar farms. Watch how KUKA robots help workers for Sunstall, a construction company based in Novato, CA, that specializes in ground-mount systems for large solar utility sites. With each module weighing 70 to 80 lb, moving solar units can get tiring fast. Safety is an issue too. Cosmic Robotics (San Francisco) helped design and build the mobile system, which uses a KUKA KR 70 to do the heavy lifting of the panels and places them onto the racking with millimeter precision. [Credit: Video screenshot courtesy of KUKA Robotics]
View the video.

Economical gearbox series for delta robot drives

Neugart's new NDFC gearbox series expands its delta robot portfolio, balancing cost efficiency with reliability. Positioned below the NDF series, it features a proven output stage, robust sealing, and a dynamic clamping system. Available in three sizes (064, 090, 110) with ratios from 16 to 100, it offers adjustable backlash to optimize savings. Ideal for food, beverage, and packaging applications.
Learn more.

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.
Learn more.

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.
Learn more.

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.
Learn more.

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.
Learn more.

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.

UW: Crashing rockets could lead to novel sample-return technology

During spring break the last five years, a University of Washington class has headed to the Nevada desert to launch rockets and learn more about the science and engineering involved. Sometimes, the launch would fail and a rocket smacked hard into the ground.

This year, the session included launches from a balloon that were deliberately directed into a dry lakebed. Far from being failures, these were early tests of a concept that in the future could be used to collect and return samples from forbidding environments -- an erupting volcano, a melting nuclear reactor, or even an asteroid in space.

An artist's conception shows a sampling rocket, with a tether linking a return capsule inside the rocket to a recovery craft. [Illustration: Chad Truitt/UW]

 

 

"We're trying to figure out what the maximum speed is that a rocket can survive a hard impact," said Robert Winglee, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences, who heads that department and leads the annual trek to the desert.

The idea for a project called "Sample Return Systems for Extreme Environments" is that the rocket will hit the surface and, as it burrows in a short distance, ports on either side of the nose will collect a sample and funnel it to an interior capsule. That capsule will be attached by tether to a balloon or a spacecraft, which would immediately reel in the capsule to recover the sample.

"The novel thing about this is that it developed out of our student rocket class. It's been a successful class, but there were a significant number of rockets that went ballistically into the ground. We learned a lot of physics from those crashes," Winglee said.

The technology, which recently received $500,000 over two years from NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts, could have a number of applications, he said.

On Earth, it would allow scientists a relatively safe way of recovering samples in areas of high contamination, such as Japan's Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant and the Chernobyl nuclear power facility in Ukraine, both of which suffered catastrophic failures. Or it could collect samples from an erupting volcano to give Earth scientists a better understanding of the processes at work during one of nature's most violent shows. In either case, the tethered sample-return capsule could be hauled in by a balloon or a plane.

In space, the system could collect samples from a single asteroid or a series of them, with a "mothership" recovering the tethered capsules and returning them to Earth.

"It would be like taking a core sample before you go mining," Winglee said.

He noted that there has been growing interest in possibly mining asteroids, both for finding substances that are in increasingly short supply on Earth, and potentially to find the natural resources to create fuel for long-term space missions.

For this project, Winglee is working with Robert Hoyt of Tethers Unlimited Inc. of Bothell, WA, which has developed tether technology for use in space, on Earth, and in the oceans.

In the first phase of testing earlier this year in Black Rock Desert, about 100 miles north of Reno, NV, rockets were fired from an altitude of 3,000 ft. It turned out that wasn't high enough for proper performance testing, Winglee said, but even then components of the system survived supersonic impact under rocket power.

The second phase of testing could take place in California next summer, with follow-up tests a year later. Rockets would be fired from a higher altitude in an attempt to achieve twice the speed of sound, or about 1,520 mph.

"And survive -- that's the tricky part," Winglee said.

Source: University of Washington

Published November 2013

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