The Internet of Things is coming from dreams and plans to reality, but some people in manufacturing are suggesting that IoT must include the Internet of Manufacturing Things, or even just the Internet of Manufacturing. Many IoT applications in other fields are about adding computers and internet capability to things that don’t currently communicate at… Read more »
Servo motors are our business, since we specialize in Rexroth’s legacy electric motion control, so we’re always interested to see new trends in automation. The latest trend goes beyond industrial motion control, however, and brings the Internet of Things to a larger canvas: the city. The world’s population is set to double by 2050,… Read more »
Operator safety is a key issue for automation and industrial motion control. Uncontrolled motions made by machines can be deadly to humans in the same work space as machinery. The typical solution is to cage robotic arms or otherwise to keep humans and robots quite separate. It’s not so much that robots are intrinsically dangerous… Read more »
Baxter has something that a lot of people don’t have. Something that can’t be taught. Something that is extremely important when it comes to working with people. Baxter has, “behavior-based ‘common sense,’ capable of sensing and adapting to its task and its environment.” The new robot named Baxter was designed by the Rodney Brooks, a… Read more »
The 2014 Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robot Show presented plenty of new ideas in robotics, including two very big ideas. First, as countries like the U.S. decide to bring their manufacturing jobs home, Taiwan is looking for ways to extend their robotics industry beyond manufacturing. Robots that can be trained, they figure, will be able… Read more »
You use them to keep in touch with friends and family, to shop, to take pictures and listen to music, to take notes and store documents, to read books and to make phone calls. Your smartphone or tablet has become such a central part of your life that it’s probably hard to imagine what your… Read more »
One of the industries in which Indramat motion control is most commonly used is in preparing packaging. There may be some question about the future of print books, magazines, and newspapers, but it’s clear that packaging for products is around for the long haul. In fact, some industry insiders will tell you that all the… Read more »
Bosch Rexroth is introducing new integrated industrial motion control technology with the less than cool slogan, “One cable instead of three!” We might have gone with, “One cable to rule them all!” or “All for one and one for all!” Lots of companies have offered one cable, not three, for lots of things in the… Read more »
In his new book, Big Data @Work, Thomas Davenport envisions ways in which big data could change the face of manufacturing — just as it has already changed marketing and healthcare. “Big data,” he explains, “refers to data that is too big to fit on a single server, too unstructured to fit into a row-and-column… Read more »
German engineers at Festo have developed a servo motor-driven kangaroo that is able to do something important. Sure, it hops, and it’s impressive that it can do so in response to gestures from 50 feet away, but the coolest thing the bionic kangaroo can do is something that Festo hopes will make a big difference… Read more »
