via GIPHY Industrial robots’ contribution to healthcare is most often seen in things like innovative pharmaceutical packaging. Robotics in healthcare tends toward the very small scale things like the da Vinci robotic surgery system, tools that help surgeons gain accuracy and lessen fatigue. That might change, though. UCLA’s Orthopedic Biomechanics Laboratory has a fairly ordinary-looking industrial… Read more »
We sometimes joke about Bob’s Bait and Servo Repair Shop, a little place near the river where you can pick up some tasty worms for your fishing, maybe a little BBQ, and also drop off your servo motor for a quick patch job. We joke about it… but it’s not really that funny. The story… Read more »
The largest tidal power plant in the world started out as a government SNAFU. The Republic of Korea built a huge dam as part of a land reclamation project, forming a fresh water lake and a coastal lagoon near Seoul. Before long, the water quality in the coastal lagoon was worse than brackish. The Korean… Read more »
According to TechCrunch, “We are at the cusp of the industrial-robot revolution.” They’re thinking of the new generation of robots with the fine motor skills required to thread needles, the collaborative robots that can work safely alongside humans. They’re thinking about robots that can learn how to do tasks. They’re thinking about the Internet of… Read more »
While robotics competitions aren’t currently threatening the Superbowl for number of viewers or sponsorship dollars, they’re important enough in the world of robotics that they’re being discussed as a sport. Sports are obviously more important in our culture than mere contests. Try bragging about your all-region choir placement while someone else brags about his all-state… Read more »
The U.S. Dept. of Energy says there are 13.5 million electric motors in use in the U.S. today. That includes household appliances as well as servos for industrial motion control, but the same source calculates that 70% of manufacturing’s collective electric bill goes to feed electric motors — and many of those will be servo… Read more »
Not all robotics competitions are big, government-funded, international meets where universities face off on automata for major world needs. There are also big, government-funded, international meets where secondary school students face off in a medieval theme, like the FIRST competition. For more than a quarter of a century, FIRST has been preparing kids for study… Read more »
Open Core and Open Source technologies are central to the Internet of Things, and Rexroth is leading the way for Industry 4.0. The focus on open source software is unavoidable, since machines have to be able to communicate freely in order to fulfill the promise of the IoT in industry and beyond. Put at its… Read more »
