The origination of the term “mechatronics” is credited to Tetsuro Mori, an engineer at the Japanese company Yaskawa, in 1969, who was working to develop an industrial robot. The mechatronics discipline has always given engineers a unique perspective on machine tool design, building and use in the manufacturing world. However, it was the automotive industry […]
Additive Manufacturing in the Real World
There is no doubt that additive processing will dramatically change the future of manufacturing. If you consider the original stereo lithography polymer proces, 3D printing, one example of additive manufacturing, has actually been around for a long time, 30 years according to one leading supplier. It has progressively impacted the process of new product design […]
Rethink Robotics and Aldebaran both launch robots for research, teaching and custom development
Rethink Robotics just launched a version of their Baxter robot armed with a new SDK providing educators and researchers with almost limitless capabilities at an affordable cost. Using ROS and the new SDK, educators and researchers have the ability to share innovations and build on each other’s work and know-how. Read their press release. Aldebaran…
Robots make the cover of Time Magazine — again!
The cover of the April 22 issue of Time Magazine shows robots chiseling out the words “Made in the USA” and the story is “Manufacturing is back — but where are the jobs?“ The story makes the case that (1) the “offshoring boom appears to have largely run its course”; (2) labor productivity has been…
iRobot stock jumps 14% on Q1 earnings and 2013 projections
iRobot’s stock (ISRG:NASDAQ) jumped 14% today on yesterday’s earnings report which exceeded analysts’ expectations for both the quarterly earnings and the annual projections. “We kicked off 2013 with an outstanding quarter,” said Colin Angle, chairman and chief executive of iRobot in a statement. “The results and outlook for our home Robot business are excellent.” Domestic…
Omron Foundation Helps Establish the “Omron Robotics and Mechatronics Laboratory”
The new Omron Robotics and Mechatronics Laboratory at Northern Illinois University’s College of Engineering and Engineering Technology (CEET) was unveiled during a ribbon cutting ceremony on Friday, April 19th. Omron Foundation has donated both equipment and funding to create the new lab which will enhance instruction for mechanical, electrical, and computer engineering students, and enable […]
Mechanics of Control
Just as mechanical definitions are critical in motion control systems, mechanical definitions have an incredibly important role to play in control systems as well. I was reminded of this fact when I was looking at a control system for a machine at a friend’s factory. It was a very simple machine to uncoil rolls of […]
Cars and Reliability – Part 2
One aspect of reliability is simplicity. Simple mathematics. If there are fewer parts, there are fewer things to go wrong. Yet the internal combustion engine, not to mention the rest of the car, is anything but simple. A typical 6 cylinder engine is a system of hundreds of parts. In addition, the parts have very […]
The final word about robots and jobs
By Frank Tobe, Editor and Publisher, The Robot Report At the Xconomy Forum held in Palo Alto earlier this week, the focal topic was “Robots Remake the Workplace.” It was expected that the jobs issue would permeate the event… do robots take away jobs? Instead, what was evident to all in the room was that…
Stanford Robot Block Party – part of National Robotics Week
I’m always surprised when I come to Stanford. I find new companies setting up shop in the area. Ford’s new research lab wasn’t there the last time I drove by, for example. Later, when walking around Palo Alto and in a restaurant I could hear snippets of conversation that were different than most other college…
Stanford U hosts Robot Block Party as part of National Robotics Week
Instead of just seeing a Lidar spinning around on top of a car, at the block party you could walk around the back and see a sun-shaded monitor showing what the Lidar was seeing. And talk with an eager young salesperson about what you could do with the data. One booth stood out as a…
New Report Shows That Robots CREATE Jobs
At an International Federation of Robotics (IFR) CEO Round Table held at Automate 2013, in Chicago, IFR executives presented a recap of a new research report on the positive impact of industrial robots on employment. The report, prepared by British market research company Metra Martech, updates a 2011 report on the same subject with three…
Do Industrial Robots Really Have A Positive Impact On Employment?
By Frank Tobe, Editor and Publisher, The Robot Report Source: KUKA, 1983 Do industrial robots really have a positive impact on employment? Of course they do and there are over 50 years of data proving that to be the case. There are at least 350,000 people directly employed by and in the industrial robotics industry. However, industrial…
Cars and Reliability
Today’s cars are extremely complex assemblies of all kinds of mechatronic systems. Toyota says their average car contains about 30,000 parts if you include all the screws and fasteners. That’s a lot of complexity to manage on top of the ever increasing electronics content of newer vehicles. The basic idea of the car is essentially […]
Two New Videos Show Progress With Humanoid Robots
Boston Dynamics has clothed their Petman (left) humanoid robot to test hazardous conditions and to be able to detect chemicals leaking through the suit. Check out the video here. COMAN (right), modeled on a 4-year-old child, from the Italian Institute of Technology, has a new video showing how its variable stiffness joints (which use series…
Blimp-in-a-box contract causes acquisition
Global Telesat Corp (think Globalstar, inmarsat and Iridium), and Lighter Than Air Systems, were awarded a DoD contract to provide the Army with two Blimp-in-a-Box systems. In order to fulfill that contract and to benefit from future collaborations of a similar nature, Lighter Than Air Systems agreed to be acquired in an almost all-stock transaction…