Agriculture is one of the most interesting industries when it comes to robotics. On the one hand, there are strong reasons to choose automation for agriculture: It’s more and more difficult, at least in the United States, to find human beings willing to work in agriculture. Family farms are having trouble keeping the younger generation… Read more »
Sensors are a lot of the big news for robotics innovation these days. Rexroth’s new SCD Sensor, for example, can measure temperature, acceleration, magnetic field/current, and lighting, right out of the box. SCD stands for “Sense Connect Detect.” This is a game-changer because the SCD Sensor can measure and report on multiple factors at the… Read more »
The Department of Transportation funded a study determined to find out if it’s true that men won’t ask for directions. Actually, the study had other goals. However, for our purposes it’s enough that they looked into this stereotype. Drivers in general, they found, spend as much as 40% of their time not really sure where… Read more »
The craft beer industry has been growing by leaps and bounds, fueled by rising demand for small local beer brands. While decades of mergers and consolidation led to complete domination of the beer market by MillerCoors and Anheuser-Busch by the beginning of the 21st century, craft breweries have increased their employment by 700% since then…. Read more »
Many of the components in Rexroth’s electric industrial drive and control systems do not require maintenance. There are maintenance-free motors, controls that have lubrication intended to outlast the component, and linear actuators that use innovative technology that eliminates the need for lubrication. What’s more, servo technology just naturally reduces wear and tear. There are fewer… Read more »
People believe all kinds of things that aren’t true. Servomotors are safe or dangerous. Gotta be one or the other, right? Actually, no. Servomotors are not safe or dangerous in and of themselves. They’re safe or dangerous depending on how they’re built, how they’re configured, and how they’re used. All three elements have to work… Read more »
Sensors in the modern factory can monitor things like vibration, humidity, or temperature in ways that allow the owners to predict when a particular valve might need replacement or a particular machine might benefit from reman. But what about the human workers? It’s possible that owners could also gather information on whether workers are getting… Read more »
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has given a grant to a group of researchers hoping to use brain activity and eye movements of gamers to inform the programming of robot swarms for military use. The basic idea is to gather data from 25 students playing a game similar to StarCraft, Stellaris and… Read more »
The DKC01.3 is the Swiss Army Knife of DKC drives. The DKC11.3 is often referred to as the dumb drive, which is unfair, but also accurate. And what about the DKCXX.3? This is a very special drive, in that it doesn’t exist. If you see “DKCXX.3,” you’re looking in the wrong place. That code… Read more »
Ford started with the Model A, but Rexroth has much longer model names. The MKD motor shown above, for example, is the MKD071B-061-KPO-KN. Model numbers are important when you need to replace a Rexroth component. Each individual letter and digit has a specific meaning. Rexroth models come in many different variations, each one identifiable by… Read more »
