Keeping it Simple
The KISS principle. Keep It Simple Stupid. Hopefully they still teach this in engineering school. It is the essence of good design. Reducing the complex to the most simple form possible. What I...
View ArticleIndustrial Control and Consumer Electronics
The world of consumer electronics migrates on at the speed of Moore’s Law. Cost and performance have been increasing uniformly for the last 20 years. The cellphone in your pocket is a more powerful...
View ArticleConsumer Electronics and Industrial Control – Part 2
Maybe the real answer is volume. Comparing the size of the consumer electronics market to the industrial controls market including motion control there is still a huge disparity. The 2012 worldwide...
View ArticleWhat’s Next for Machine Controllers
In the world of Industrial Controls, the traditional platform has been the PLC. This control was initially the by-product of decades of hard wired automation based on relay logic. The rules were...
View ArticleCars 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...
View ArticleCars 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...
View ArticleMechanics 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...
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Omron Foundation Helps Establish the “Omron Robotics and Mechatronics...
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,...
View ArticleAdditive 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...
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Machine builders use mechatronics
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...
View ArticleStarting and Stopping
Cars guys will sometimes say that the worst thing you can do is start your car. This is because after sitting still for any length of time, at the instant you turn the key, there is no lubrication in...
View ArticleStarting and Stopping – Part 2
It seems trite to say that Newton’s basic laws of motion still haven’t changed. A body in motion tends to stay in motion, except when it hits something else or slows down and coasts to a stop. Let’s...
View ArticleJobless Recovery?
A lot of commentary about jobless recovery recently. It brings to mind many comments from politicians campaging for election. They are going to bring jobs back to America. I don’t think so. Job...
View ArticleWhich Industrial Revolution is This?
There has been some press recently around the announced 4th Industrial Revolution currently under way. From what I have read so far, this has been general marketing hype about the “Internet of...
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How to Convert Print-unit Systems into Gearless Systems
Dr. Razvan Panaitescu, SE&A AMD PM MS , B&L Machine Design Converting print unit systems to gearless systems may be a new concept in the printing industry, but better accuracy often results....
View ArticleWork
We are makers of machines. It is one of the many defining characteristics of mankind. My guess is that we create machines primary out of a desire to avoid work. Which makes perfect sense. Work is a...
View ArticleThe Future of Work
The future of work is in doubt. All you have to do is check the unemployment figures. Well, you need to really check the unemployment figures because the government keeps changing the basis for its...
View ArticleThe Promise of Wind Power
Electric Power generated by the wind is a really great idea. It may be more romantic than practical. The energy density of wind is very low, so converting wind to do mechanical work isn’t as easy as...
View ArticlePower Dense Motors & Controls
In the history of the electric motor, progress has been very slow. It has been over 100 years since the day of the dynamo and early installations of direct current lighting. The large, bulky dynamo...
View ArticleSemicon 2013
In the world of mechatronics, the largest market segment for application of mechatronic components is the semiconductor industry. The 2013 Semicon show is an important industry gathering for all...
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