Free Advanced Mechatronics Seminar for Motion Control

Danaher Motion Performance Controls (MEI), in partnership with The MathWorks and sponsored by Design World magazine, is hosting a free half-day seminar on Advanced Mechatronics for High Performance Motion Control on Wednesday, October 22, 2008, at the Boston Marriott® Newton hotel.  Persons interested in attending can learn more and register online at http://www.motioneng.com/mechatronicseminarOct. Read more

AC and DC

It has been over 100 years since the first DC dynamo’s were built to power electric lights.  Shortly after Edison’s direct current debut, Nicola Tesla and George Westinghouse gave the world AC powered motors.  And the “War of the Currents” has been going on ever since.  Although its been less visible of a ware in recent years.

Some of the crazy publicity stunts conducted during the “War of the Currents” are legendary.  Edison made the claim that the only thing AC power was good for was electrocution of convicted criminals.

AC power won out, of course.  DC power cannot overcome significant losses due to resistance drop over over distance.  And in order for electricity to serve more people, its all about the delivery system. Read more

Tradeoffs and Triangles

The activity of optimization involves trade off analysis.  The goal is to improve performance or cost effectiveness, or both if possible.  Nowadays, we have some really sophisticated software tools that allow us to simulate the behavior of complex systems. Computational fluid dynamics, magnetic field simulations, thermal imaging, finite element analysis are a few of the amazing technologies that can now be engaged on desktop computers to conduct sophisticated analysis of performance at the click of a mouse button.

Simulation work that used to require mainframe computing power is now generally available as an add on module to 3D engineering graphics products.  Most of the major 3D engineering design products include animation features that allow the user to build and move the parts in space exactly as they will do when built.  Read more

Mechatronic Tidal Simulation Assists Scientists

Scientists from London’s Imperial College are using the new RT3 version of the Reliance Cool Muscle NEMA 23 integrated servo system to reproduce the sub-surface pressure changes created by lunar tides in laboratory research experiments directed at improving oil recovery.

The unique abilities of the RT3 version along with the support provided by Reliance allow the scientists to concentrate on the research without having to spend time controlling and verifying the test system. Read more

Materials and Mechatronics

A great scientist recently said that most of the new innovations in coming years would be in the materials science world.  (Sorry I can’t remember the reference, or I would gladly give credit…)  Seems like he may prove to be right.

Organic LED materials and processes show the potential to replace the mainstream display technologies.  Which is pretty impressive given the multi-billion dollar size of market for displays these days. Read more

The Automatic Book Scanner ScanRobot

The book scanner ScanRobot® has been developed for the digitization of huge book inventories. The book scanner has the ability to turn the pages automatically and to to scan a whole book at once.

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The Future of Feedback

Feedback technology isn’t as simple as it seems.  Over the years, the technology has improved and costs have decreased dramatically.  HP’s scribed disc encoder used to be the standard at around $50/unit in small quantities.  Now through beam LED based encoder kits are available for $25 and less.  Accuracy is good, and products are available from a variety of suppliers off the shelf. Read more

The Future of Mechatronic Design

I think mechatronics generally begins with mechanical design.  That’s just my perspective, it may differ in your experience.   If its a power window in a car, a hard disk drive platter machine, a blender, an amusement park ride or display, a surgical robot, whatever.  They all start with mechanical design, performance goals and boundary conditions that are required for the mechanical system to be useful.

This is why there needs to be great emphasis on the design of software tools that are extensions to the 2D and 3D CAD products that are currently available.  Obviously, if you are engaged in mechanical design, you are in a unique position to the final outcome of the design project.   The mechanical design work sets the boundary conditions of what is possible. Read more