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Overhung load adaptors provide load support and contamination protection

Overhung load adaptors (OHLA) provide both overhung radial and axial load support to protect electrified mobile equipment motors from heavy application loads, extending the lifetime of the motor and alleviating the cost of downtime both from maintenance costs and loss of production. They seal out dirt, grime, and other contaminants too. Zero-Max OHLAs are available in an extensive offering of standard models (including Extra-Duty options) for typical applications or customized designs.
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Why choose electric for linear actuators?

Tolomatic has been delivering a new type of linear motion technology that is giving hydraulics a run for its money. Learn the benefits of electric linear motion systems, the iceberg principle showing total cost of ownership, critical parameters of sizing, and conversion tips.
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New AC hypoid inverter-duty gearmotors

Bodine Electric Company introduces 12 new AC inverter-duty hypoid hollow shaft gearmotors. These type 42R-25H2 and 42R-30H3 drives combine an all-new AC inverter-duty, 230/460-VAC motor with two hypoid gearheads. When used with an AC inverter (VFD) control, these units deliver maintenance-free and reliable high-torque output. They are ideal for conveyors, gates, packaging, and other industrial automation equipment that demands both high torque and low power consumption from the driving gearmotor.
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Next-gen warehouse automation: Siemens, Universal Robots, and Zivid partner up

Universal Robots, Siemens, and Zivid have created a new solution combining UR's cobot arms with Siemens' SIMATIC Robot Pick AI software and Zivid's 3D sensors to create a deep-learning picking solution for warehouse automation and intra-logistics fulfillment. It works regardless of object shape, size, opacity, or transparency and is a significant leap in solving the complex challenges faced by the logistics and e-commerce sectors.
Read the full article.

Innovative DuoDrive gear and motor unit is UL/CSA certified

The DuoDrive integrated gear unit and motor from NORD DRIVE-SYSTEMS is a compact, high-efficiency solution engineered for users in the fields of intralogistics, pharmaceutical, and the food and beverage industries. This drive combines a IE5+ synchronous motor and single-stage helical gear unit into one compact housing with a smooth, easy-to-clean surface. It has a system efficiency up to 92% and is available in two case sizes with a power range of 0.5 to 4.0 hp.
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BLDC flat motor with high output torque and speed reduction

Portescap's 60ECF brushless DC slotted flat motor is the newest frame size to join its flat motor portfolio. This 60-mm BLDC motor features a 38.2-mm body length and an outer-rotor slotted configuration with an open-body design, allowing it to deliver improved heat management in a compact package. Combined with Portescap gearheads, it delivers extremely high output torque and speed reduction. Available in both sensored and sensorless options. A great choice for applications such as electric grippers and exoskeletons, eVTOLs, and surgical robots.
Learn more and view all the specs.

Application story: Complete gearbox and coupling assembly for actuator system

Learn how GAM engineers not only sized and selected the appropriate gear reducers and couplings required to drive two ball screws in unison using a single motor, but how they also designed the mounting adapters necessary to complete the system. One-stop shopping eliminated unnecessary components and resulted in a 15% reduction in system cost.
Read this informative GAM blog.

Next-gen motor for pump and fan applications

The next evolution of the award-winning Aircore EC motor from Infinitum is a high-efficiency system designed to power commercial and industrial applications such as HVAC fans, pumps, and data centers with less energy consumption, reduced emissions, and reduced waste. It features an integrated variable frequency drive and delivers upward of 93% system efficiency, as well as class-leading power and torque density in a low-footprint package that is 20% lighter than the previous version. Four sizes available.
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Telescoping linear actuators for space-constrained applications

Rollon's new TLS telescoping linear actuators enable long stroke lengths with minimal closed lengths, which is especially good for applications with minimal vertical clearance. These actuators integrate seamlessly into multi-axis systems and are available in two- or three-stage versions. Equipped with a built-in automated lubrication system, the TLS Series features a synchronized drive system, requiring only a single motor to achieve motion. Four sizes (100, 230, 280, and 360) with up to 3,000-mm stroke length.
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Competitively priced long-stroke parallel gripper

The DHPL from Festo is a new generation of pneumatic long-stroke grippers that offers a host of advantages for high-load and high-torque applications. It is interchangeable with competitive long-stroke grippers and provides the added benefits of lighter weight, higher precision, and no maintenance. It is ideal for gripping larger items, including stacking boxes, gripping shaped parts, and keeping bags open. It has high repetition accuracy due to three rugged guide rods and a rack-and-pinion design.
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Extend your range of motion: Controllers for mini motors

FAULHABER has added another extremely compact Motion Controller without housing to its product range. The new MC3603 controller is ideal for integration in equipment manufacturing and medical tech applications. With 36 V and 3 A (peak current 9 A), it covers the power range up to 100 W and is suitable for DC motors with encoder, brushless drives, or linear motors.
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When is a frameless brushless DC motor the right choice?

Frameless BLDC motors fit easily into small, compact machines that require high precision, high torque, and high efficiency, such as robotic applications where a mix of low weight and inertia is critical. Learn from the experts at SDP/SI how these motors can replace heavier, less efficient hydraulic components by decreasing operating and maintenance costs. These motors are also more environmentally friendly than others.
View the video.

Tiny and smart: Step motor with closed-loop control

Nanotec's new PD1-C step motor features an integrated controller and absolute encoder with closed-loop control. With a flange size of merely 28 mm (NEMA 11), this compact motor reaches a max holding torque of 18 Ncm and a peak current of 3 A. Three motor versions are available: IP20 protection, IP65 protection, and a motor with open housing that can be modified with custom connectors. Ideal for applications with space constraints, effectively reducing both wiring complexity and installation costs.
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Closed loop steppers drive new motion control applications

According to the motion experts at Performance Motion Devices, when it comes to step motors, the drive technique called closed loop stepper is making everything old new again and driving a burst of interest in the use of two-phase step motors. It's "winning back machine designers who may have relegated step motors to the category of low cost but low performance."
Read this informative Performance Motion Devices article.

Intelligent compact drives with extended fieldbus options

The intelligent PD6 compact drives from Nanotec are now available with Profinet and EtherNet/IP. They combine motor, controller, and encoder in a space-saving package. With its 80-mm flange and a rated power of 942 W, the PD6-EB is the most powerful brushless DC motor of this product family. The stepper motor version has an 86-mm flange (NEMA 34) and a holding torque up to 10 Nm. Features include acceleration feed forward and jerk-limited ramps. Reduced installation time and wiring make the PD6 series a highly profitable choice for machine tools, packaging machines, or conveyor belts.
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New type of soft-yet-strong robot hand can grasp both delicate and heavy objects

The origami gripper can lift a wide range of objects, from apples and soup cans to wine glasses and drones. [Image: Jason Dorfman/MIT CSAIL]

 

 

By Rachel Gordon, MIT

Fifty years ago, the first industrial robot arm (called Unimate) assembled a simple breakfast of toast, coffee, and champagne. While it might have looked like a seamless feat, every movement and placement was coded with careful consideration.

Even with today's more intelligent and adaptive robots, this task remains difficult for machines with rigid hands. They tend to work only in structured environments with predefined shapes and locations, and typically can't cope with uncertainties in placement or form.

In recent years, though, roboticists have come to grips with this problem by making fingers out of soft, flexible materials like rubber. This pliability lets soft robots pick up anything from grapes to boxes and empty water bottles, but they're still unable to handle large or heavy items.

To give these soft robots a bit of a hand, researchers from MIT and Harvard University have developed a new gripper that's both soft and strong: a cone-shaped origami structure that collapses in on objects, much like a Venus' flytrap, to pick up items that are as much as 100 times its weight. This motion lets the gripper grasp a much wider range of objects -- such as soup cans, hammers, wine glasses, drones, and even a single broccoli floret.

"One of my moonshots is to create a robot that can automatically pack groceries for you," says MIT Professor Daniela Rus, director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and one of the senior authors of a new paper about the project.

"Previous approaches to the packing problem could only handle very limited classes of objects -- objects that are very light, or objects that conform to shapes such as boxes and cylinders. But with the Magic Ball gripper system, we've shown that we can do pick-and-place tasks for a large variety of items ranging from wine bottles to broccoli, grapes, and eggs," says Rus. "In other words, objects that are heavy and objects that are light. Objects that are delicate, or sturdy, or that have regular or free-form shapes."

VIDEO: MITCSAIL: Origami robot gripper.

The project is one of several in recent years that has researchers thinking outside the box with robot design. Ball-shaped grippers, for example, can handle a wider range of objects than fingers, but still have the issue of limited angles. Softer robotic fingers typically use compressed air, but aren't strong enough to pick up heavier objects.

The structure of this new gripper, meanwhile, takes an entirely different form. Cone-shaped, hollow, and vacuum-powered, the device was inspired by the "origami magic ball" and can envelope an entire object and successfully pick it up.

The gripper has three parts: the origami-based skeleton structure, the airtight skin to encase the structure, and the connector. The team created it using a mechanical rubber mold and a special heat-shrinking plastic that self-folds at high temperatures.

The magic ball's skeleton is covered by either a rubber balloon or a thin fabric sheet, not unlike the team's previous research on fluid-driven origami-inspired artificial muscles, which consisted of an airtight skin surrounding a foldable skeleton and fluid.

The team used the gripper with a standard robot to test its strength on different objects. The gripper could grasp and lift objects 70 percent of its diameter, which allowed it to pick up and hold a variety of soft foods without causing damage. It could also pick up bottles weighing over 4 lb.

"Companies like Amazon and JD want to be able to pick up a wider array of delicate or irregular-shaped objects, but can't with finger-based and suction-cup grippers," says Shuguang Li, a joint postdoc at CSAIL and Harvard's John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. "Suction cups can't pick up anything with holes -- and they'd need something much stronger than a soft-finger-based gripper."

The robot currently works best with cylindrical objects like bottles or cans, which could someday make it an asset for production lines in factories. Not surprisingly, the shape of the gripper makes it more difficult for it to grasp something flat, like a sandwich or a book.

"One of the key features of this approach to manipulator construction is its simplicity," says Robert Wood, co-author and professor at Harvard's School of Engineering and Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. "The materials and fabrication strategies used allow us to rapidly prototype new grippers, customized to object or environment as needed."

In the future, the team hopes to try to solve the problem of angle and orientation by adding computer vision that would let the gripper "see" and make it possible to grasp specific parts of objects.

"This is a very clever device that uses the power of 3D printing, a vacuum, and soft robotics to approach the problem of grasping in a whole new way," says Michael Wehner, an assistant professor of robotics at the University of California at Santa Cruz, who was not involved in the project. "In the coming years, I could imagine seeing soft robots gentle and dexterous enough to pick a rose, yet strong enough to safely lift a hospital patient."

Other co-authors of the paper include MIT undergraduates John Stampfli, Helen Xu, Elian Malkin, and Harvard Research Experiences for Undergraduates student Evelin Villegas Diaz from St. Mary's University. The team will present their paper at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Montreal, Canada, this May.

This project was supported in part by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Science Foundation, and Harvard's Wyss Institute.

Published April 2019

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