System solutions
Engineering students power Kenyan clinic
An engineering student design team at Virginia Tech is creating a photovoltaic system to provide a medical clinic in Kenya with a desperately needed source of power. Donations from IBM, Renesola, and Grundfos Pumps, working together with the Virginia Tech Foundation, have provided the students on the Renewable Energy Senior Design Team with about half of the materials necessary to build the system....
Recent Articles in System Solutions
Virtual modeling: Measure twice; cut once
Virtual modeling with software verifies components concurrent with other development tasks, while virtual integration can prevent inferior quality or...
Getting a handle on gripping
What is a robot without its arm or means to grip and move objects? Not much. Technically, robots have existed for at least 100 years. Their rougher mechanical...
Robotic safety standards evolving
It looks like robots are here to stay: Significant increases in microprocessing power and recent strides in automation and control technology have made...
Waving goodbye to vibration
From heavy-duty tool presses to light and zippy semiconductor manufacture, all machines are subject to vibration. Minimizing oscillation boosts system...
Improving energy efficiency
Conserving energy on a system-wide basis starts at the component level. Check out some of the latest green offerings and expert tips that will help your...
Software and innovation, simplified
Intense global competition is pressuring machine builders to deliver equipment that increases throughput and features while reducing operating costs....
Dimensional inspection, decades later
The precision gear inspection lab described in the July 1959 issue of Motion System Design no longer exists at Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, headquartered...
Robotic auto reaches for the stars
When French automaker Citron wanted something exciting to lure customers into its flagship showroom along the Champs-es avenue in Paris, the company contacted...
Top 10 tipsMotion programming
Don't underestimate the importance of program architecture. Setting up the best architecture for the application requires a lot of advance planning. Instead...
Operation donut: Dispensing technology pulls out all the stops
When electrical component manufacturer FTZ Industries, Simpsonville, S.C., set out to create a new electrical splice, they had a vision in mind: To create...
Engineering students power Kenyan clinic
An engineering student design team at Virginia Tech is creating a photovoltaic system to provide a medical clinic in Kenya with a desperately needed source of power. Donations from IBM, Renesola, and Grundfos Pumps, working together with the Virginia Tech Foundation, have provided the students on the Renewable Energy Senior Design Team with about half of the materials necessary to build the system....
Programmability debugged
Specifying components is easy. Putting them together in a complex motion system is anything but. If your next project requires programming expertise to...
Time saving technology: Programming software
Save time with programming software New software development tools accelerate motion programming, test, and simulation. Application Development Kit (ADK)...
Motion platforms unlock programmable automation
One of the major hurdles designers face when attempting to build programmable automation systems is the complexity associated with software development....
PLCs bus into the future
IPC 1995 displayed a few new products in PLC hardware and software. But the real news was the proliferation of sensor-actuator (or device-level) ...
