Iceland’s Össur, a company which develops, manufactures and sells non-invasive orthopaedic and bionic prosthetics, received a Popular Science Magazine’s 2012 “Best of What’s New” award for Össur’s new Symbionic Leg. The world’s first complete bionic leg, Össur’s Symbionic Leg combines a bionic microprocessor knee and a powered bionic ankle with proactive powered ankle flexion into…
New Era Manufacturing
We stand at a cross roads that many people may be unaware of. The world of manufacturing as we know it is about to change. This claim has been made by others in The misperception is partly due to the fact that the rate of change in industry is very slow. In a global economic […]
Westwood Group
Lockheed Martin Acquires UAV Maker Chandler/May
Lockheed Martin acquires ChandlerMay for an undisclosed amount. The new acquisition will join Lockheed’s Mission Systems & Sensors (MS2) business. ChandlerMay, with facilities in Huntsville, AL and San Luis Obispo, CA, has produced over 2,500 UAVs for the military, mostly as a subcontractor to Lockheed. ChandlerMay also produces UAS ground control stations and tactical systems…
Next Generation of Control
The thing that programmable controllers don’t typically do well is manage data. This is primarily because the memory is organized to serve the control programming environment and not designed for data applications. Separate memory must be allocated and the transactions necessary to interact with memory must be coded. This means a lot of overhead and […]
OmniGuide in the news
Cambridge, MA-based OmniGuide recently got $35 million non-dilutive financing from OrbiMed Advisors enabling company to grow toward profitability over the next several years. OmniGuide’s new BeamPath laser system used in novel robot-assisted minimally invasive laser surgery for fibroids at Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital. Operation was broadcast live to an international audience of over 1,000…
Chris Anderson, Wired editor-in-chief, resigns to run 3D Robotics
Anderson has held the editor-in-chief position for 11 years during which time, in addition to his work at Wired, he authored three books and founded DIY Drones and co-founded 3D Robotics. He also grew Wired’s circulation and won eight magazine awards. In 2010, Adweek named Wired its magazine of the decade. Now he is leaving…
More on Robotics
There are several aspects of the mechatronics challenge in robotics. In the previous post, I hinted at some, but on reflection the list is significant and all the issues should be considered. Managing the trajectory is a challenge on computing level just to crunch the numbers and resolve the mechanical organization of the robot into […]
Eldercare Robots
Games, sensors and robots are among the tools beginning to come to market to help aging people live in their homes as long as possible. By Frank Tobe, Editor and Publisher, The Robot Report Source: BusinessWeek Magazine In December, 2003, BusinessWeek Magazine interviewed Joseph Engelberger, the robotics pioneer. The article was entitled “How Robots Lost Their…
New Russian entrant into creepiest robot face contest
Neurobotics, a Russian brain research organization, has just released videos of their new human-like woman robotic head. Click to see their video. Hanson Robotics, whose Einstein head is shown above, Kokoro, a Japanese robot manufacturer, and Japanese professor Hiroshi Ishiguro are all known for their realistic android heads – all of which have given the…
Wave Glider transmits real time weather data during Hurricane Sandy
One of Liquid Robotics‘ Wave Gliders successfully piloted itself through Hurricane Sandy winds and transmitted weather data in real time. The Wave Glider was in the region 100 miles off the coast of New Jersey. It’s sensors reported a plunge in barometric pressure to a low of 946 as it battled 70 knot winds. It…
Fly and film in HD
Parrot (PARRO on the Euronext Paris exchange), a French company famous for its audio and wireless devices for phones and cars, unveiled their first AR.Drone at CES in 2010 to huge crowds (I was there). The updated AR.Drone 2 was previewed at CES 2012 and is now available for sale. The big difference is the…
Hansen Medical stock (HNSN:NASDAQ) jumps 22%
Intuitive Surgical updated their co-exclusive rights to certain of Hansen Medical‘s patent portfolio for a fee of $20 million. Intuitive also purchased $10 million of Hansen Medical’s stock. The deal extends a 2005 agreement and adds Hansen patents filed subsequent to that date. Hansen Medical provides a line of intravascular robotics products; Intuitive Surgical produces…
Accuray launches new TomoHDA and gets FDA okay for CyberKnife M6
New TomoTherapy System enables faster planning and more focused delivery often resulting in half beam-on time than previously. CyberKnife M6 (shown above) is a 3D image-guided and robotically controlled beam and patient positioning radiology delivery system. Accuray stock (ARAY:NASDAQ) is up 64% year-to-date from $2.72 to $6.95.
Robots and Controls
Robots are unlike any other mechatronic system. Robots are typically 5 to 6 axis platforms, which, while they may be made up of the same components as any other mechatronic systems, they are subject to very complex control requirements. The control of the robot has to take into account the weights and sizes of […]
Battered iRobot stock takes another hit
Although iRobot reported that its 3rd quarter profits rose 8% and the company saw revenue growth within its consumer products, the stocks dropped 19% as it warned that it’s revenue outlook had deteriorated 5% further than previously reported. Also announced was the closing of the Durham, NC facility – its maritime operation where iRobot produced…
NAO, WALL-E, PackBot and BigDog inducted into Robot Hall of Fame
Aldebaran Robotics‘ NAO humanoid robot won in the Education & Consumer category. WALL-E, the star of the 2008 Disney/Pixar movie of the same name, won in the Entertainment category. iRobot‘s PackBot robot won in the Industrial & Service category. Boston Dynamics‘ BigDog won the Research category. All were selected by popular vote to represent contemporary…
Coordinated Motion
An occasional topic of conversation in the control industry is understanding what is meant by coordinated motion. The topic is fairly ambiguous since we have many examples of complex pieces of machinery with high axis counts and which definitely give the impression of coordinated motion. The illusion of coordination is based on the fact that […]
FoxBots Being Deployed in China
Foxconn-built robot FoxBot. Source: TechWeb.com.cn Foxconn, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision (2317:TW), has begun deploying their own brand of industrial robots to their factory in Jincheng, Shanxi Province, China, according to various reports from China news sources. Shanxi Province is an area where Foxconn is partnering with local governments – spending $16…
First Sighting of FoxBots in China
Foxconn said they would be deploying 1 million robots in their factories in China. The first photographs of one of those appeared in Chinese news last week. 10,000 turquoise FoxBots have been installed in a factory in Jincheng, China. News sources estimate that Foxconn is behind schedule to meet their goal of 300,000 by the…
Scale Effect – Part 2
Other considerations of scale effect occur in control systems as well. When considering a control system problem, the bandwidth or scaling of the control parameters themselves are often a major issue. What happens when the velocity of a system needs to be controlled over a range 1000 to 1 or greater? This was the exact […]
eBee First Product From Parrot/senseFly Investment
In July, the Parrot Group partnered with senseFly, a Swiss start-up and spin-off from the Swiss EPFL, and invested $5.3 million to help senseFly grow. Their initial plan was to develop a high volume manufacturing capability and fund rapid growth and new product development. The eBee is the first such product from that venture. The…