Mod­ern ro­bots are in­creas­ingly tak­ing on high-pre­ci­sion tasks that re­quire max­im­um ac­cur­acy. Thanks to the use of ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, they are be­com­ing in­creas­ingly flex­ible and in­tel­li­gent, and can handle far more com­plic­ated tasks than just a few years ago. Around 30 com­pan­ies will be present­ing ex­cit­ing and mod­ern ap­plic­a­tions at the Ap­plic­a­tion Park at HAN­NOV­ER MESSE from March 31 to April 4. 

Par­ti­cip­at­ing com­pan­ies

The French com­pany In­bolt will of­fer an in­tel­li­gent, ad­apt­able solu­tion for ro­bot guid­ance: with a 3D cam­era moun­ted dir­ectly on the ro­bot, AI-powered al­gorithms al­low it to in­stantly loc­ate and po­s­i­tion parts in real time, while smoothly ad­just­ing its move­ments on the fly to achieve the best res­ults. In­bolt's solu­tion is suit­able for everything from simple pick-and-place tasks to more com­plex as­sembly tasks. With AI-driv­en soft­ware that tracks and ad­justs mov­ing parts in real time, In­bolt en­ables mov­ing as­sembly lines to be auto­mated without in­ter­rupt­ing pro­duc­tion. This raises pro­ductiv­ity and ef­fi­ciency to a whole new level. 

Mo­bile in­dus­tri­al ro­bots such as AGVs (Auto­mated Guided Vehicles), AM­Rs (Autonom­ous Mo­bile Ro­bots) or IM­Rs (In­dus­tri­al Mo­bile Ro­bots) will ac­count for the li­on's share of the ex­hib­its in the Ap­plic­a­tion Park. For them, Con­ductix-Wamp­fler from Weil am Rhein of­fers in­nov­at­ive solu­tions that in­crease ef­fi­ciency and re­li­ab­il­ity in in­t­ra­lo­gist­ics and auto­mot­ive pro­duc­tion. The port­fo­lio in­cludes char­ging con­tacts such as En­duro+ and Nano+ as well as in­duct­ive char­ging with the Wire­lessChar­ger 3.0 to en­sure op­tim­um en­ergy man­age­ment. The en­ergy stor­age sys­tems max­im­ize op­er­at­ing time. Robin'6 of­fers Wi-Fi 6 con­nectiv­ity for seam­less fleet de­ploy­ment, while Ra­di­oSafe provides SIL 3/PLe safety for ro­bot fleets. The en­ergy and data trans­mis­sion solu­tions can be ad­ap­ted to the re­quire­ments of any mo­bile ro­bot ap­plic­a­tion.

Pro Spot Deutsch­land GmbH from Donaueschin­gen will be at­tend­ing with its new 15s Smart Spot weld­ing co­bot! The world's lead­ing manu­al spot weld­ing sys­tem has been seam­lessly in­teg­rated in­to a safe, user-friendly co­bot-auto­mated weld­ing work cell. This means that fully auto­mat­ic spot weld­ing is now also pos­sible in pro­duc­tion plants without com­plex safety cells and pro­tect­ive devices. 

If you want to meet the spe­cial­ists at HAN­NOV­ER MESSE, you can re­gister for a free tick­et on the fair web­site: ht­tps://www.han­nov­er­messe.de/en/?open=tick­etRe­gis­tra­tion&code=5C5oC

By ex­pand­ing its net­work in North­ern Europe, FAUL­HABER is get­ting closer to its cus­tom­ers, of­fer­ing short­er com­mu­nic­a­tion chan­nels, loc­al ad­min­is­tra­tion and op­tim­ised ser­vice in all four Nor­d­ic coun­tries. The busi­ness will be taken over by the ex­ist­ing dis­trib­ut­ors. FAUL­HABER sales en­gin­eers will be avail­able loc­ally for ad­vice and sales, so that new and ex­ist­ing cus­tom­ers can con­tin­ue to rely on per­son­al con­tact and FAUL­HABER ex­pert­ise.

Fu­ture-proof strategy

Hein Vos, Re­gion­al Sales Man­ager North-West Europe, will head up FAUL­HABER Nor­d­ic ApS. Com­ment­ing on the mar­ket situ­ation, he ex­plains: “In the Nor­d­ic coun­tries, we see a high-tech mar­ket that de­mands high-qual­ity, high-per­form­ance mini­ature DC ser­vo­mo­tors. For ex­ample in the field of med­ic­al devices, ro­bot­ics and pro­duc­tion auto­ma­tion we see a grow­ing de­mand for the use of our tech­no­logy. This aligns per­fectly with our cap­ab­il­it­ies, as we can provide nearly everything—from an­swer­ing tech­nic­al ques­tions to de­liv­er­ing tail­or-made turn­key drive solu­tions. We are ex­cited to get even closer to our cus­tom­ers and share our ex­pert­ise. This helps us ad­vance what mat­ters most to us: the pro­gress, com­pet­it­ive­ness, and sat­is­fac­tion of our cus­tom­ers.”

By es­tab­lish­ing a pres­ence in Den­mark, Sweden, Nor­way, and Fin­land, FAUL­HABER is lay­ing the found­a­tion for closer col­lab­or­a­tion and un­der­scor­ing the sig­ni­fic­ance of the North­ern European mar­ket in its cor­por­ate strategy.
 

With its ar­ray of tech­no­lo­gies, PI (PROFIB­US & PROFINET In­ter­na­tion­al) stands for a mul­ti­tude of in­nov­a­tions and cross-man­u­fac­turer in­ter­op­er­ab­il­ity - start­ing with the con­nectiv­ity of plugs and cables. This is already achieved today with two- and four-pair Eth­er­net cabling, but the story of suc­cess now con­tin­ues with Single Pair Eth­er­net (SPE) - a plug con­nect­or for in­dus­tri­al auto­ma­tion. This brings clar­ity, cer­tainty, and un­am­bi­gu­ity to a long-awaited top­ic. This is an im­port­ant mile­stone that takes mini­atur­iz­a­tion a de­cis­ive step for­ward with the help of SPE.

The new har­mon­ized SPE con­nect­or sys­tem with its fu­ture-ori­ented design was im­ple­men­ted based on key ap­plic­a­tion re­quire­ments and is now be­ing sub­mit­ted for in­ter­na­tion­al stand­ard­iz­a­tion. It of­fers a stand­ard­ized mat­ing face for ap­plic­a­tions in the con­trol cab­in­et, in the field and also for hy­brid in­stall­a­tions, cre­at­ing THE con­nect­ing ele­ment and pav­ing the way for a uni­ver­sal SPE stand­ard. For the in­dustry, this new gen­er­a­tion is a fur­ther step in­to the fu­ture. Many man­u­fac­tur­ers have an­nounced their plans to be­gin im­ple­ment­a­tion in the near fu­ture.

Stand­ard­iz­a­tion work on oth­er levels of SPE com­mu­nic­a­tion - like a power concept - is also cur­rently in pro­gress, so that a con­sist­ent SPE solu­tion can be achieved across all lay­ers.

It will be pos­sible to im­ple­ment this solu­tion for all SPE ap­plic­a­tions through the use of in­ter­na­tion­al stand­ards, even at high­er speeds and in­de­pend­ently of PROFINET over SPE. Thanks to PI, its com­mit­ted mem­bers and many PROFINET sup­port­ers around the world, auto­ma­tion is be­com­ing more man­age­able and easi­er to handle for both users and man­u­fac­tur­ers alike. Re­gard­less of wheth­er it is over one, two or four wire pairs (cop­per) or over a wire­less LAN or Fiber Op­tics, PROFINET is - and will re­main - the glob­al mar­ket lead­er in in­dus­tri­al com­mu­nic­a­tion and a guar­ant­or of qual­ity, in­ter­op­er­ab­il­ity and fu­ture-ori­ent­ated tech­no­lo­gies.

With its ar­ray of tech­no­lo­gies, PI (PROFIB­US & PROFINET In­ter­na­tion­al) stands for a mul­ti­tude of in­nov­a­tions and cross-man­u­fac­turer in­ter­op­er­ab­il­ity - start­ing with the con­nectiv­ity of plugs and cables. This is already achieved today with two- and four-pair Eth­er­net cabling, but the story of suc­cess now con­tin­ues with Single Pair Eth­er­net (SPE) - a plug con­nect­or for in­dus­tri­al auto­ma­tion. This brings clar­ity, cer­tainty, and un­am­bi­gu­ity to a long-awaited top­ic. This is an im­port­ant mile­stone that takes mini­atur­iz­a­tion a de­cis­ive step for­ward with the help of SPE.

The new har­mon­ized SPE con­nect­or sys­tem with its fu­ture-ori­ented design was im­ple­men­ted based on key ap­plic­a­tion re­quire­ments and is now be­ing sub­mit­ted for in­ter­na­tion­al stand­ard­iz­a­tion. It of­fers a stand­ard­ized mat­ing face for ap­plic­a­tions in the con­trol cab­in­et, in the field and also for hy­brid in­stall­a­tions, cre­at­ing THE con­nect­ing ele­ment and pav­ing the way for a uni­ver­sal SPE stand­ard. For the in­dustry, this new gen­er­a­tion is a fur­ther step in­to the fu­ture. Many man­u­fac­tur­ers have an­nounced their plans to be­gin im­ple­ment­a­tion in the near fu­ture.

Stand­ard­iz­a­tion work on oth­er levels of SPE com­mu­nic­a­tion - like a power concept - is also cur­rently in pro­gress, so that a con­sist­ent SPE solu­tion can be achieved across all lay­ers.

It will be pos­sible to im­ple­ment this solu­tion for all SPE ap­plic­a­tions through the use of in­ter­na­tion­al stand­ards, even at high­er speeds and in­de­pend­ently of PROFINET over SPE. Thanks to PI, its com­mit­ted mem­bers and many PROFINET sup­port­ers around the world, auto­ma­tion is be­com­ing more man­age­able and easi­er to handle for both users and man­u­fac­tur­ers alike. Re­gard­less of wheth­er it is over one, two or four wire pairs (cop­per) or over a wire­less LAN or Fiber Op­tics, PROFINET is - and will re­main - the glob­al mar­ket lead­er in in­dus­tri­al com­mu­nic­a­tion and a guar­ant­or of qual­ity, in­ter­op­er­ab­il­ity and fu­ture-ori­ent­ated tech­no­lo­gies.

Dr Di­et­mar Ley, CEO of Basler AG, has been elec­ted as the new Chair­man of the VDMA  (Ger­man En­gin­eer­ing Fed­er­a­tion) Ro­bot­ics + Auto­ma­tion As­so­ci­ation. Ley has been act­ive in vari­ous com­mit­tees and func­tions with­in the VDMA for around 20 years, most re­cently as Deputy Chair­man. He takes over from Frank Kon­rad (CEO Hahn Auto­ma­tion Group GmbH), who has com­pleted his three-year term of of­fice and now holds the po­s­i­tion of Deputy Chair­man.

Ley ex­plains: "To­geth­er with my col­leagues, I look for­ward to con­tinu­ing our work as a strong voice for ro­bot­ics and auto­ma­tion in Europe. In these very dy­nam­ic times char­ac­ter­ised by geo­pol­it­ic­al un­cer­tain­ties, it is vi­tal that we pro­mote our tech­no­logy and in­nov­a­tion lead­er­ship in this field. To­geth­er, we will con­tin­ue to work to con­sol­id­ate Europe's po­s­i­tion and po­s­i­tion the re­gion as a glob­al play­er in ro­bot­ics and auto­ma­tion."

The VDMA Ro­bot­ics + Auto­ma­tion As­so­ci­ation is an in­de­pend­ent trade as­so­ci­ation with­in the VDMA with more than 400 mem­ber com­pan­ies: Sup­pli­ers of com­pon­ents and sys­tems from the fields of ro­bot­ics, auto­ma­tion solu­tions and ma­chine vis­ion. The aim of this in­dustry-driv­en plat­form is to sup­port ro­bot­ics and auto­ma­tion through a wide range of activ­it­ies and ser­vices. 
 

Pre­ci­sion sensor sup­pli­er Mi­cro-Ep­si­lon has ex­pan­ded its dir­ect pres­ence in Ire­land with the found­ing of a new di­vi­sion “Mi­cro-Ep­si­lon Ire­land Lim­ited”. The new com­pany is loc­ated in the Dub­lin re­gion and is headed by Re­gion­al Sales Man­ager, Robert Red­mond. The new of­fice will look to provide cus­tom­ers in the Re­pub­lic of Ire­land with loc­al sup­port, sales and pre­ci­sion test fa­cil­it­ies. In ad­di­tion to serving the Re­pub­lic of Ire­land, the com­pany will also be re­spons­ible for sales, ser­vice and sup­port of cus­tom­ers in North­ern Ire­land. 

Chris Jones, Man­aging Dir­ect­or of Mi­cro-Ep­si­lon UK & Ire­land com­ments: “Man­u­fac­tur­ing is one of the high per­form­ing seg­ments of the Ir­ish eco­nomy, with clusters of world class man­u­fac­tur­ing op­er­a­tions in sec­tors such as elec­tron­ics, food pro­duc­tion, med­ic­al tech­no­logy and bio­phar­ma­ceut­ic­als. Our new premises in Dub­lin, which will be closely sup­por­ted and fa­cil­it­ated by the Mi­cro-Ep­si­lon UK team, will al­low us to bet­ter serve our cus­tom­er base in Ire­land with faster re­sponse times, a bet­ter qual­ity ser­vice and the abil­ity to place or­ders dir­ectly with an Ir­ish com­pany.”

Ire­land’s level of em­ploy­ment in high-tech­no­logy man­u­fac­tur­ing, as a share of total em­ploy­ment, is now the highest in the EU, with 29% of man­u­fac­tur­ing jobs in high tech­no­logy sec­tors (source: Man­u­fac­tur­ing in Ire­land - IBEC). This is four times the EU av­er­age. Over­all, there are 260,000 people em­ployed in the Ir­ish man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor, ac­count­ing for more than 12% of total em­ploy­ment in the eco­nomy.

Robert Red­mond adds: “I am in­cred­ibly grate­ful to be­gin this jour­ney with Mi­cro-Ep­si­lon Ire­land. As an in­dustry lead­er in pre­ci­sion meas­ure­ment sys­tems, Mi­cro-Ep­si­lon is at the fore­front of in­nov­a­tion, and I am truly hon­oured to be part of the team bring­ing their cut­ting-edge products to the Ir­ish mar­ket.
 

As a res­ult of the stra­tegic part­ner­ship, around 800 sales and ser­vice em­ploy­ees from SICK will trans­fer to En­dress+Haus­er across 42 coun­tries. The col­lab­or­a­tion in pro­cess auto­ma­tion will al­low cus­tom­ers to ac­cess a broad­er range of products from a single source and be­ne­fit from en­hanced ex­pert­ise in gas meas­ure­ment tech­no­logy. With its glob­al sales net­work, En­dress+Haus­er will ac­cess new cus­tom­ers, reach ad­di­tion­al in­dus­tries and tap in­to fur­ther ap­plic­a­tion areas.

Joint ven­ture for de­vel­op­ment and man­u­fac­tur­ing

The pro­duc­tion and fur­ther de­vel­op­ment of the gas ana­lyz­ers and flow­met­ers were brought to­geth­er un­der the um­brella of En­dress+Haus­er SICK GmbH+Co. KG. SICK and En­dress+Haus­er will each hold 50 per­cent of the joint ven­ture as of 1 March 2025. The com­pany em­ploys around 730 people at sev­er­al Ger­man sites and will col­lab­or­ate closely with En­dress+Haus­er’s product cen­ters to drive product in­nov­a­tion and meet evolving mar­ket de­mands.

Seam­less busi­ness trans­ition

Hun­dreds of em­ploy­ees from both com­pan­ies have been pre­par­ing for the smooth trans­ition of the busi­ness in re­cent months. Now the gas meas­ure­ment sales and ser­vice teams at En­dress+Haus­er are ready to provide sup­port. Since 1 Janu­ary 2025, En­dress+Haus­er has been ex­clus­ively mar­ket­ing SICK’s gas ana­lys­is and flow meas­ure­ment tech­no­logy world­wide. In China, the trans­ition will not take place un­til 1 March 2025 for tech­nic­al reas­ons. In Türkiye and Saudi Ar­a­bia, sales and ser­vice will be trans­ferred to En­dress+Haus­er in the first quarter.

Dr Peter Seld­ers, CEO of the En­dress+Haus­er Group and Dr Mats Gökstorp, chair­man of the ex­ec­ut­ive board of SICK AG ex­pressed their grat­it­ude to em­ploy­ees on both sides who con­trib­uted to es­tab­lish this part­ner­ship. “Above all, we thank all the em­ploy­ees who have made the pro­cess auto­ma­tion busi­ness strong with their ex­pert­ise and com­mit­ment and will con­tin­ue this suc­cess story with the stra­tegic part­ner­ship,” said Mats Gökstorp. Peter Seld­ers ad­ded: “We look for­ward to work­ing with the people join­ing us and the joint ven­ture to build something new and make this part­ner­ship a suc­cess.” 

When de­vel­op­ing med­ic­al devices that provide pa­tient med­ic­a­tion, a crit­ic­al de­cision is wheth­er a dis­pos­able or re­usable design is most ap­pro­pri­ate. From in­fu­sion pumps that de­liv­er in­sulin, or in­jec­tion sys­tems that dose bio­lo­gics, the choice of dis­pos­able or re­usable provides com­pet­ing ad­vant­ages. The de­cision is also in­teg­ral to the spe­cific­a­tion of the mo­tion sys­tem, com­bin­ing the mo­tor, gear­box and feed­back, that is es­sen­tial for ac­tu­at­ing the pump or in­ject­or. 
Chief among the design factors is the im­pact to pa­tient out­come. Devices that need to en­sure pre­ci­sion and ac­cur­acy in med­ic­a­tion de­liv­ery must in­teg­rate pre­cise sensors and fine mo­tor con­trol. De­pend­ent on the re­quire­ments of the med­ic­a­tion treat­ment pro­file, the mo­tion sys­tem might be re­lied on to de­liv­er mi­cro-unit dos­ing. If re­peated ad­min­is­tra­tion is needed, these mo­tion sys­tems must also en­sure high re­li­ab­il­ity in dos­ing ac­cur­acy. Con­sid­er­ing the re­source in de­vel­op­ment, mo­tion fea­tures like this are usu­ally re­quired for re­usable devices. 

Mo­tion sys­tem re­quire­ments

Al­tern­at­ively, if the med­ic­a­tion pro­file doesn’t de­mand pre­ci­sion dos­ing, the mo­tion sys­tem design fo­cus from an op­er­a­tion­al per­form­ance per­spect­ive could be lim­ited to en­sur­ing that the torque and speed re­quire­ments can be achieved. This de­pends on the load, such as the vis­cos­ity of the drug, and the force with which the mo­tion sys­tem must drive it. Even for ap­plic­a­tions when dos­ing pre­ci­sion is less de­mand­ing, care­ful spe­cific­a­tion is still re­quired to bal­ance cost, as well as size, which is im­port­ant for er­go­nom­ic suit­ab­il­ity.

For re­usable devices to with­stand the rig­ors of day-to-day use, they must also be dur­able, which also in­cludes ster­il­iz­ab­il­ity. Re­usable med­ic­al devices that come in­to close pa­tient con­tact or provide in­vas­ive treat­ment must un­der­go an auto­clave pro­cess, but this cap­ab­il­ity is de­pend­ent on the set­ting of use. Al­though hos­pit­als with a high flow of pa­tients will likely have auto­clave fa­cil­it­ies on-site, devices for com­munity clin­ics or home use may in­stead need to be dis­pos­able to en­sure hy­giene and safety.

Re­usable devices are in­her­ently more sus­tain­able from an en­vir­on­ment­al per­spect­ive. This means less waste, while for dis­pos­able devices, con­sid­er­a­tions over re­cyc­lab­il­ity must also be made. However, design choice also needs to be based on eco­nom­ic sus­tain­ab­il­ity. Re­usable devices must be more dur­able, mean­ing they’re typ­ic­ally more ex­pens­ive, yet value can be achieved through long-term use.

Mo­tor tech­no­logy op­tions

For dis­pos­able devices, a mini­ature brushed DC mo­tor is the typ­ic­al choice, al­though this mo­tor type can also be ap­plied to re­usable ap­plic­a­tions. It’s a cost-ef­fect­ive design, com­bined with the cap­ab­il­ity to achieve the ap­pro­pri­ate torque dens­ity suit­able for a range of ap­plic­a­tions.

Al­tern­at­ively, step­per mo­tors achieve pre­cise po­s­i­tion­ing by mov­ing in pre­defined, dis­crete steps. Im­port­ant for drug de­liv­ery sys­tems, step­per mo­tors also re­tain their ac­cur­acy over time, and as the mo­tor moves a defined angle with each cur­rent pulse, they don’t re­quire a feed­back device as their po­s­i­tion is al­ways achieved if sized prop­erly.

Step­per mo­tors achieve high­er torque at lower speed, while if great­er speed is re­quired, brush­less DC (BLDC) mo­tors are the op­tim­um choice. Re­mov­ing the phys­ic­al means of com­mut­a­tion, the BLDC mo­tor in­stead re­lies on elec­tron­ics, which op­tim­izes con­trol pre­ci­sion as well as ef­fi­ciency. This means that BLDC mo­tors can also achieve a smal­ler foot­print, ideal for er­go­nom­ic con­sid­er­a­tions, while im­proved ef­fi­ciency can op­tim­ize bat­tery use.

Gear­heads are of­ten re­quired for ap­plic­a­tions de­mand­ing high­er torque and lower speeds. Stand­ard gear­boxes might be ap­pro­pri­ate for dis­pos­able devices, giv­en their typ­ic­al rat­ing that cov­ers typ­ic­al ap­plic­a­tion re­quire­ments. However, for re­usable designs, cus­tom­iz­a­tion en­ables form factor op­tim­iz­a­tion and spe­cif­ic ma­ter­i­al se­lec­tion based on the an­ti­cip­ated num­ber of op­er­at­ing hours and ster­il­iz­a­tion cycles.

Cus­tom­iz­a­tion for dis­pos­able and re­usable designs

Even for dis­pos­able designs, mo­tion sys­tem cus­tom­iz­a­tion can be prefer­able. De­pend­ent on the ma­ter­i­als and design, cus­tom­ized solu­tions can reach an im­proved scale of eco­nomy when a cer­tain pro­duc­tion volume is reached. However, when design­ing a med­ic­al device to reach a spe­cif­ic level of per­form­ance, dur­ab­il­ity, or form factor, as is of­ten re­quired for re­usable devices, cus­tom­iz­a­tion is typ­ic­ally re­com­men­ded. This ap­proach en­sures a mo­tion sys­tem with the closest spe­cific­a­tion-to-re­quire­ments match.

Design for a spe­cif­ic cus­tom­er ap­plic­a­tion can in­volve cus­tom­iz­able off-the-shelf (COTS) products, through to be­spoke mo­tion sys­tem de­vel­op­ment. While the lat­ter is more ex­tens­ive, it can ul­ti­mately achieve the most cost-ef­fect­ive, well-per­form­ing sys­tem. Cus­tom­er spe­cif­ic ap­proaches de­mand close sup­port from a mo­tion spe­cial­ist, and eval­u­at­ing the design from the concept phase is es­sen­tial to stream­line de­vel­op­ment. Yet, even when less ex­tens­ive cus­tom­iz­a­tion is re­quired, es­tab­lish­ing a part­ner­ship with a mo­tion spe­cial­ist at an early stage is the most ef­fect­ive way of de­vel­op­ing an ef­fi­cient pro­cess to op­tim­ize mo­tion sys­tem design.
 

Thanks to em­bed­ded sensors, these bear­ings al­low crit­ic­al para­met­ers such as tem­per­at­ure, vi­bra­tion and load to be mon­itored in real time, provid­ing an un­pre­ced­en­ted level of in­sight in­to op­er­a­tion­al per­form­ance. However, as ad­vanced and be­ne­fi­cial as smart bear­ings are, they are not im­mune to chal­lenges. This makes bear­ing fail­ure ana­lys­is more im­port­ant than ever.

Bear­ing fail­ure, wheth­er tra­di­tion­al or smart, can be the cause of costly down­time, equip­ment dam­age, safety haz­ards and, in ex­treme cases, cata­stroph­ic sys­tem fail­ure. To pre­vent re­cur­rence and op­tim­ise sys­tem re­li­ab­il­ity, it is es­sen­tial to identi­fy the root causes of these fail­ures. Poor mount­ing, im­prop­er lub­ric­a­tion, con­tam­in­a­tion, mis­align­ment or over­load are re­spons­ible for around 70% of all bear­ing fail­ures. These prob­lems may seem simple to solve. However, without ex­pert ana­lys­is, they of­ten go un­dia­gnosed (or ig­nored) un­til it's too late.

From data to ac­tion

While smart bear­ings provide in­valu­able ad­di­tion­al data, they re­quire a hu­man touch to turn in­sight in­to ac­tion and help fully ex­ploit their be­ne­fits. This is where pre­ci­sion bear­ing and tool­ing spe­cial­ists CARTER MAN­U­FAC­TUR­ING make a big dif­fer­ence, of­fer­ing a me­tic­u­lous ap­proach to un­cov­er­ing the ex­act reas­ons be­hind bear­ing prob­lems. Us­ing state-of-the-art dia­gnost­ic tools com­bined with dec­ades of ex­per­i­ence, the Carter team provides com­pre­hens­ive re­ports and ac­tion­able re­com­mend­a­tions to ex­tend bear­ing life. Moreover, bear­ing fail­ure ana­lys­is plays a com­ple­ment­ary role to smart tech­no­lo­gies. The data gen­er­ated by smart bear­ings, such as ir­reg­u­lar vi­bra­tion pat­terns or thermal an­om­alies, can be in­dic­at­ive of po­ten­tial fail­ures, but the dia­gnos­is of these in­dic­at­ors re­quires spe­cial­ist know­ledge. This is where Carter's ex­pert­ise bridges the gap, en­sur­ing that data is not only col­lec­ted, but un­der­stood and ac­ted upon.

The im­port­ance of timely and ac­cur­ate as­sess­ment of bear­ing fail­ure is crit­ic­al in in­dus­tries such as aerospace, en­ergy and man­u­fac­tur­ing, where bear­ing re­li­ab­il­ity un­der­pins sys­tem safety. With Carter's sup­port, com­pan­ies can con­fid­ently ad­dress op­er­a­tion­al chal­lenges, op­tim­ise main­ten­ance sched­ules and pro­tect their in­vest­ments, even in the age of smart tech­no­logy.

It is in­ev­it­able that the growth of smart bear­ing tech­no­logy will con­tin­ue, with re­cent mar­ket re­search sug­gest­ing that the glob­al smart bear­ing mar­ket will be worth $8 bil­lion by 2026. This means that the de­mand for proven and ro­bust fail­ure ana­lys­is will only in­crease. Carter Man­u­fac­tur­ing re­mains at the fore­front of this crit­ic­al field, provid­ing cus­tom­ers with the tools, in­sight and ex­pert­ise they need to suc­ceed in today's tech­no­logy-driv­en, cost-ef­fect­ive land­scape.
 

Re­cently launched and now avail­able for cus­tom­er or­ders in Europe, Panason­ic In­dustry's new MI­NAS A7 fam­ily of com­pact servo drives is the in­dustry's first com­mer­cially avail­able AI-en­abled servo sys­tem. The units use Panason­ic In­dustry's in­de­pend­ently de­veloped pre­cAIse tun­ing, which makes full use of AI tech­no­logy to achieve highly ac­cur­ate auto­mat­ic tun­ing without the need for an ex­pert en­gin­eer. This also re­duces set-up time by up to 90%.

Com­pact and cost-ef­fect­ive solu­tion 

MI­NAS A7 mo­tors and drives im­prove equip­ment per­form­ance while sim­pli­fy­ing in­stall­a­tion and op­er­a­tion. Thanks to the in­teg­rated AI, the servo sys­tem can even auto­mate tasks in areas where ex­perts are re­quired to spend time manu­ally tun­ing ma­chines due to the un­sat­is­fact­ory per­form­ance of con­ven­tion­al auto­mat­ic tun­ing func­tions. The product achieves the highest level of mo­tion per­form­ance with an en­coder res­ol­u­tion of the servo mo­tor with 27 bits and 134,217,728 pulses/time. The speed re­sponse fre­quency, which in­dic­ates the con­trol per­form­ance of servo amp­li­fi­ers, reaches an in­dustry high of 4.0 kHz or high­er. In ad­di­tion, the servo mo­tor achieves a max­im­um speed of 7,150 rpm, which con­trib­utes to short­er cycle times. The MI­NAS A7 has a com­pact design, which saves space and res­ults in cost ef­fect­ive­ness. Last but not least, the MI­NAS A7 servo drives are back­wards com­pat­ible with the MI­NAS A6 units. They are 1:1 in­ter­change­able thanks to the same in­ter­faces and flange size.

The servo drive fam­ily en­sures ex­tremely stable op­er­a­tion and longer ma­chine com­pon­ent life thanks to on­line mon­it­or­ing tools. They re­duce in­stall­a­tion time and main­ten­ance costs and en­sure the highest pro­cessing qual­ity and speed in a wide range of ap­plic­a­tions such as spin coat­ers, di­cing saws, chip trans­fer ma­chines, IC hand­lers, bond­ing equip­ment, sub­strate in­spec­tion equip­ment, met­al and laser pro­cessing ma­chines, in­jec­tion mould­ing ma­chines, presses and tube bend­ing ma­chines.
 

Siemens launches its first fully elec­tron­ic starter with semi­con­duct­or tech­no­logy. The SIMAT­IC ET 200SP e-Starter of­fers short-cir­cuit pro­tec­tion that is 1000 times faster and is vir­tu­ally wear-free com­pared to con­ven­tion­al solu­tions such as cir­cuit break­ers or fuses. This en­sures op­tim­al pro­tec­tion for mo­tors as well as oth­er types of loads and the ap­plic­a­tions in which they are used. The e-Starter also fea­tures the ap­plic­a­tion-friendly Smart Start and full in­teg­ra­tion in­to the Totally In­teg­rated Auto­ma­tion (TIA) concept. The com­pact device can be used world­wide, re­quires min­im­al space in the con­trol cab­in­et, and is easy to in­stall.

In in­dus­tries such as food and bever­age, in­t­ra­lo­gist­ics, and mech­an­ic­al en­gin­eer­ing, high ef­fi­ciency mo­tors are used in de­mand­ing ap­plic­a­tions, for ex­ample to drive con­vey­or sys­tems or pumps. Mal­func­tions and fail­ures can quickly lead to con­sid­er­able dam­age and costs. Against this back­drop, mo­tor starters play an im­port­ant role: They not only switch mo­tors re­li­ably, but also pro­tect them against over­load and short cir­cuits.

Ul­tra-fast switch­ing with SiC MOS­FETS

The SIMAT­IC ET 200SP e-Starter uses semi­con­duct­or tech­no­logy with sil­ic­on carbide met­al-ox­ide semi­con­duct­or field-ef­fect tran­sist­ors (SiC MOS­FETS), which en­ables ul­tra-fast and wear-free switch­ing. Be­cause of the short-cir­cuit pro­tec­tion device they are equipped with con­ven­tion­al feed­er solu­tions have a com­par­at­ively slow re­sponse time. As a res­ult, the device of­ten needs to be re­placed when a short cir­cuit oc­curs. In con­trast, the e-Starter de­tects short cir­cuits ex­tremely quickly and switches off in less than 4 µs. This makes it ap­prox­im­ately 1,000 times faster than con­ven­tion­al com­pon­ents. The device of­fers un­lim­ited short-cir­cuit shut­down and does not need to be re­placed after be­ing tripped, which in­creases avail­ab­il­ity and sig­ni­fic­antly re­duces ware­hous­ing costs for re­place­ment parts.

High in­rush cur­rents are typ­ic­al for high-ef­fi­ciency mo­tors, e.g. those in en­ergy ef­fi­ciency classes IE3 and IE4, and can lead to un­in­ten­ded trips of the pro­tec­tion device. The phase-op­tim­ized switch­ing and Smart Start of the SIMAT­IC ET 200SP e-Starter neut­ral­ize the in­rush cur­rents and sig­ni­fic­antly re­duce the start­ing cur­rents and there­fore the elec­tric­al load on the grid dur­ing start-up. In ad­di­tion, the torque surges that oc­cur dur­ing a dir­ect start are min­im­ized as well, no­tice­ably re­du­cing the mech­an­ic­al wear. This means that less main­ten­ance work is re­quired – a valu­able be­ne­fit for ap­plic­a­tions with a high switch­ing rate.

Ma­chine and plant man­u­fac­tur­ers and sys­tem in­teg­rat­ors be­ne­fit from the seam­less in­teg­ra­tion of the e-Starter in­to the mar­ket-lead­ing auto­ma­tion concept Totally In­teg­rated Auto­ma­tion (TIA). Dia­gnost­ic func­tions come as a stand­ard, en­abling de­tailed sys­tem dia­gnostics without the need for pro­gram­ming. Un­lim­ited data avail­ab­il­ity and en­gin­eer­ing us­ing SIMAT­IC STEP 7 in TIA Portal sim­pli­fy project plan­ning, para­met­er­iz­a­tion and com­mis­sion­ing. Auto­mat­ic re-para­met­er­iz­a­tion makes it easy to re­place devices dur­ing on­go­ing op­er­a­tion (hot swap­ping). 
 

Our sol­ar sys­tem has fas­cin­ated man­kind for thou­sands of years. As­tro­nom­ic­al re­search is look­ing for an­swers to the big ques­tions of hu­man ex­ist­ence. How big is the uni­verse? How did it come in­to be­ing? As­tro­nomers all over the world are cast­ing their gaze in­to space. However, it is not only huge space tele­scopes that provide spec­tac­u­lar im­ages, smal­ler tele­scopes equipped with stand­ard in­dus­tri­al cam­er­as also al­low back­yard as­tro­nomers to look far and gain new in­sights. However, in ad­di­tion to ver­sat­ile cam­era soft­ware, the right sensors are cru­cial for the qual­ity of the im­ages. Aus­trali­an am­a­teur as­tro­nomer An­thony Wes­ley has found the uEye XCP cam­era from IDS, equipped with Sony Star­vis 2 sensors, to be an ex­cel­lent choice for cap­tur­ing high res­ol­u­tion pic­tures of our neigh­bour­ing plan­ets in­clud­ing Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Sat­urn.

As­tro­pho­to­graphy has to over­come spe­cial chal­lenges in two re­spects, both tech­nic­al and nat­ur­al. This ap­plies in par­tic­u­lar to tele­scop­ic im­ages of plan­ets. Firstly, the Earth's at­mo­sphere is con­stantly in mo­tion, cre­at­ing tur­bu­lence that dis­torts the light com­ing from the stars or plan­ets. This so-called ‘see­ing’ leads to a flick­er­ing or blur­ring of the ob­jects, es­pe­cially when ob­serving through earth­bound tele­scopes. This blur­ring and dis­tor­tion caused by at­mo­spher­ic tur­bu­lence makes it dif­fi­cult to cap­ture de­tailed im­ages.

Us­ing the right wavelength

Secondly, the earth's at­mo­sphere ab­sorbs and scat­ters vis­ible or short-wave blue light. Near-in­frared light, on the oth­er hand, is scattered less, which leads to clear­er and sharp­er im­ages. This is par­tic­u­larly im­port­ant in re­gions with poor ‘see­ing’ con­di­tions caused by air tur­bu­lence. In ad­di­tion, in­frared light pen­et­rates thin clouds and dust particles bet­ter than vis­ible light. By us­ing an NIR-sens­it­ive cam­era, as­tro­nomers can look be­hind these in­ter­stel­lar dust clouds and re­cog­nise struc­tures that re­main hid­den in vis­ible light. This ap­plies, for ex­ample, to young stars and star-form­ing re­gions, which are usu­ally sur­roun­ded by dense dust clouds. But the same ap­plies to cap­tur­ing im­ages of large plan­ets such as Sat­urn or Jupiter: the more power­ful the cam­era in the low-light range, the more in­form­at­ive the im­ages will be. Not to be neg­lected: In­frared light is less in­flu­enced by ar­ti­fi­cial light sources on Earth. This means that NIR-sens­it­ive sensors also of­fer bet­ter con­di­tions for ob­serving the sky in areas with mod­er­ate light pol­lu­tion.

Ap­plic­a­tion

Cam­er­as with par­tic­u­larly high NIR sens­it­iv­ity are there­fore in high de­mand. In this con­text, am­a­teur as­tro­nomer An­thony Wes­ley has in­vest­ig­ated the per­form­ance of IDS cam­er­as from the XCP fam­ily with Star­vis 2 class sensors and their suit­ab­il­ity for plan­et­ary pho­to­graphy - with suc­cess: The IDS cam­era mod­el U3-38C0XCP-M-NO which is equipped with the IMX662 mono­chrome sensor, de­liv­ers ex­cel­lent res­ults.

‘The IDS cam­era is the ima­ging ele­ment for a tele­scope with an aper­ture of 415 mil­li­metres and a fo­cal length of 6000 mil­li­metres,’ he ex­plains the cam­era's func­tion. ‘It re­cords one- to two-minute video seg­ments of plan­ets such as Jupiter and Sat­urn at a speed of around 60 frames per second through in­ter­change­able fil­ters, both in vis­ible light and in the in­frared range.’

To form a single op­tic­al unit that fits in­to the eye­piece sock­et of the tele­scope, An­thony Wes­ley screwed the IDS cam­era, fil­ter wheel and Bar­low lens dir­ectly to­geth­er. The Bar­low lens between the eye­piece and the tele­scope ex­tends the fo­cal path of the tele­scope and thus in­creases the mag­ni­fic­a­tion without the need for an ad­di­tion­al eye­piece. ‘The IDS cam­era base has been mod­i­fied to al­low mount­ing at a low dis­tance, as I don't need the stand­ard C/CS dis­tance,’ he ex­plains the design.

But what fea­tures make the cam­era par­tic­u­larly suit­able for this ap­plic­a­tion? ‘Light sens­it­iv­ity that goes far bey­ond the hu­man eye - that's what sensors with Star­vis 2 tech­no­logy from Sony stand for,’ says Jürgen Hejna, Product Man­ager uEye cam­er­as at IDS, sum­mar­ising the strength of the sensors. For ex­ample, the U3-38C0XCP Rev.1.2 mod­el with the 2.16 MPixel IMX662 rolling shut­ter sensor achieves ex­cep­tion­al im­age qual­ity with a par­tic­u­larly high dy­nam­ic range thanks to the pixel tech­no­logy. The USB3 cam­era de­liv­ers a fast 88 im­ages per second and is par­tic­u­larly strong in low-light ap­plic­a­tions where high sens­it­iv­ity and low res­ol­u­tion are re­quired. The 1/3’’ sensor also min­im­ises dis­tract­ing re­flec­tions with­in the cam­era thanks to so-called “Anti Re­flec­tion Coat­ing”.

For An­thony Wes­ley, the com­pact cam­era has fur­ther ad­vant­ages: ‘The com­pact, light­weight uEye XCP is well suited for am­a­teur tele­scopes. The uEye cam­er­as are in­ex­pens­ive, but of­fer al­most all the func­tions that am­a­teur as­tro­nomers want for this ap­plic­a­tion.’ He was also im­pressed by the easy in­teg­ra­tion of the IDS cam­er­as via the IDS peak soft­ware de­vel­op­ment kit. ‘I am the de­veloper and main­tain­er of the IDS cam­era mod­ule in the Fir­e­Cap­ture soft­ware, which is pop­u­lar with am­a­teur as­tro­nomers. The IDS mod­ule is writ­ten in C with Mi­crosoft Visu­al Stu­dio and is com­piled in­to a DLL that can be eas­ily loaded in­to Fir­e­Cap­ture to en­able the use of the com­pre­hens­ive soft­ware fea­tures.’

Im­age pro­cessing

The video seg­ments re­cor­ded us­ing Fir­e­Cap­ture are then fur­ther pro­cessed us­ing Auto­stak­kert, a Win­dows soft­ware pro­gram that auto­mat­ic­ally aligns and merges the im­ages of the night sky. ‘The soft­ware com­bines and av­er­ages the in­di­vidu­al im­ages and cor­rects for blur­ring and dis­tor­tion caused by the Earth's at­mo­sphere,’ ex­plains An­thony Wes­ley. These blurs can ap­pear as blur­ring or im­age noise and ob­scure im­port­ant de­tails in the im­ages. In as­tro­nom­ic­al ima­ging, the meth­od of de­con­vo­lu­tion is there­fore used to op­tim­ise the im­age qual­ity of tele­scope im­ages and to cor­rect blurred or dis­tor­ted im­ages. In this case, the As­tra Im­age and Re­gistax soft­ware pack­ages are used for de­con­vo­lu­tion and im­age sharpen­ing. In the next step, the ob­served ro­ta­tion of the tar­get ob­ject dur­ing the re­cord­ing time must be cor­rec­ted. ‘For ex­ample, Jupiter ro­tates by one de­gree every 90 seconds,’ says An­thony. The Win­jupos soft­ware is used for this, which can be used to su­per­im­pose, derotate and ad­just time-shif­ted im­ages and videos and to merge red/green/blue im­ages in­to one col­our im­age. ‘The fi­nal im­age clean-up is done with Gimp. In this way, the post-pro­cessing of the video can com­pensate for the blur­ring ef­fect of the earth's at­mo­sphere and drastic­ally re­duce it so that a clear im­age of the tar­get ob­ject is cre­ated,’ says An­thony, sum­mar­ising the fi­nal im­age pro­cessing pro­ced­ure.

Soft­ware

In or­der to guar­an­tee all this, however, per­fect in­ter­ac­tion between hard­ware and soft­ware is re­quired. The IDS cam­er­as are eas­ily in­teg­rated us­ing the IDS peak soft­ware de­vel­op­ment kit (SDK). ‘IDS peak is per­fectly matched to our hard­ware, al­low­ing users to get the most out of our cam­er­as. It in­cludes pro­gram­ming in­ter­faces and soft­ware tools that en­sure an in­tu­it­ive pro­gram­ming ex­per­i­ence, quick and easy in­stall­a­tion and ver­sat­ile ap­plic­a­tion op­tions,’ em­phas­ises Dami­en Wang, Area Sales Man­ager at IDS. This makes it pos­sible to util­ise the ex­tens­ive fea­tures of the Fir­e­Cap­ture soft­ware spe­cially de­veloped for as­tro­pho­to­graphy.

‘With the uEye XCP mod­els, we are not only of­fer­ing something new in our port­fo­lio, but are also once again among the pi­on­eers in the in­dus­tri­al cam­era mar­ket. The cur­rent sensor tech­no­logy of these cam­er­as en­sures high frame rates, re­mark­ably high im­age qual­ity - and im­presses with its high sens­it­iv­ity in the in­frared range, even when used in low-light situ­ations such as plan­et­ary pho­to­graphy. With the com­pon­ents used here, not only pro­fes­sion­al but also am­a­teur as­tro­nomers are able to take par­tic­u­larly high-res­ol­u­tion im­ages of ce­les­ti­al ob­jects,' em­phas­ises Jürgen Hejna.

An­thony Wes­ley has been ob­serving plan­ets as well as the cam­era mar­ket very closely for over twenty years. "Cam­er­as and tech­no­logy made an evol­u­tion­ary step for­ward from the past, in either NIR sens­it­iv­ity or low noise. The tech­no­logy of the uEye XCP in com­bin­a­tion with the class 2 Sony Star­vis sensors are un­doubtedly among the best cur­rently avail­able", he con­cludes.

Out­look

‘Cam­er­as based on the Sony Star­vis 2 sensors will be pop­u­lar with am­a­teur as­tro­nomers in the plan­et­ary ima­ging com­munity due to their high sens­it­iv­ity, great depth of field and low noise,’ says An­thony Wes­ley. ‘Es­pe­cially in the NIR range between 700 nm and 1000 nm, where very in­ter­est­ing work can be achieved that will ad­vance our un­der­stand­ing of oth­er plan­ets in our sol­ar sys­tem.’ But the field of ap­plic­a­tion of the cam­er­as does not only ex­tend in­to space. ‘Many of the tech­niques used can also be ap­plied to oth­er areas with sim­il­ar chal­lenges, such as un­der­wa­ter ima­ging in low-light en­vir­on­ments,’ re­com­mends the Aus­trali­an.

About:
An­thony Wes­ley is an am­a­teur as­tro­nomer from Aus­tralia who spe­cial­ises in video as­tro­nomy and low light pho­to­graphy of plan­ets in the sol­ar sys­tem. He has ad­ded sup­port for sev­er­al cam­er­as from vari­ous man­u­fac­tur­ers to Fir­e­Cap­ture, one of the lead­ing plan­et­ary cap­ture tools, and rated the uEye+ XCP cam­er­as out­stand­ing.
 

Tele­dyne DALSA an­nounced its next gen­er­a­tion AI-powered BOA™3 smart cam­era for in­dus­tri­al auto­ma­tion and in­spec­tion. The new smart cam­era is de­signed to lever­age the best fea­tures from pre­vi­ous BOA gen­er­a­tions and com­bine them with new sensor and AI (Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence) in­spec­tion tech­no­lo­gies. BOA3 is a highly in­teg­rated vis­ion sys­tem in a com­pact, rugged smart cam­era format de­signed to meet the needs of the most com­plex, de­mand­ing ma­chine vis­ion ap­plic­a­tions.

BOA3 of­fers sensor res­ol­u­tions from 1.2 to 12MP, in­teg­rated or C-mount lens op­tions, on­board I/O, and in­cludes easy-to-use ma­chine vis­ion soft­ware, all in one com­mon plat­form. BOA3 smart cam­er­as de­liv­er the flex­ib­il­ity and un­com­prom­ised func­tion­al­ity to en­able quick, cost-ef­fect­ive em­bed­ded ma­chine vis­ion de­ploy­ments. BOA3 comes with iN­spect™, an easy-to-use, no-code in­spec­tion de­vel­op­ment soft­ware with tools for po­s­i­tion­ing, part loc­at­ing, pat­tern match­ing, meas­ur­ing, bar­code read­ing, fea­ture or de­fect de­tec­tion, in­clud­ing auto­mat­ic read­ing of char­ac­ters (OCR) based on a pre-trained AI in­fer­ence net­work. 

BOA3 mod­els with 1.2, 5MP, and 12MP mono­chrome sensors are avail­able im­me­di­ately. Col­or ver­sions are planned for re­lease at the end of 2024. New sensor and lens op­tions will be ad­ded to the plat­form in 2025.
 

The Mod­el 390 is Re­solve Op­tics most com­pact ra­di­ation res­ist­ant lens. Meas­ur­ing just 21 x 14mm – the Mod­el 390 is the per­fect non brown­ing lens for small sensor cam­er­as op­er­at­ing in high ra­di­ation areas. The 5mm fo­cal length fixed fo­cus lens is de­signed to main­tain high clar­ity up to a total ra­di­ation dose of 100,000,000 rad and is op­tim­ized for use with ¼-inch im­age format ra­di­ation res­ist­ant CCD cam­er­as. 

Provid­ing true HD qual­ity im­ages, the Mod­el 390 lens of­fers a wide field of view and is proven in high ra­di­ation nuc­le­ar ap­plic­a­tions in­clud­ing mon­it­or­ing of hot cells, belt lines and close in­spec­tion of baffle bolts. 
Rob Watkin­son, Re­solve Op­tics sales man­ager ex­plains “While the Mod­el 390 lens is great for close-up, space lim­ited ap­plic­a­tions in a high ra­di­ation en­vir­on­ment it does not com­prom­ise on per­form­ance. In­cor­por­at­ing spe­cially se­lec­ted ceri­um doped glass ele­ments - the Mod­el 390 can cap­ture clear, sharp high-defin­i­tion im­ages free of the yel­low tint in­her­ent in older non brown­ing lenses, with min­im­um geo­met­ric dis­tor­tion from 400 to 770nm”.

The Leuze DCR 1048i OCV is an in­nov­at­ive sensor that de­tects 1D or 2D codes and checks the im­print qual­ity at the same time. It can read codes and also check qual­ity us­ing the OCV pro­cess in one ap­plic­a­tion. This makes it pos­sible to re­li­ably de­term­ine wheth­er the best-be­fore date, batch or oth­er prin­ted in­form­a­tion is present, com­plete and legible.

Op­tim­al visu­al veri­fic­a­tion 

OCV stands for “Op­tic­al Char­ac­ter Veri­fic­a­tion”. Users can teach in the vis­ion sensor for OCV print qual­ity veri­fic­a­tion eas­ily, quickly and without com­plex para­met­ers. All the user needs to do is to present a ref­er­ence im­age of the op­tim­um print to the sensor. The DCR 1048i OCV then re­li­ably de­tects de­fect­ive print­ing – for ex­ample, clogged print heads, low ink cart­ridges, or ad­he­sion prob­lems. Once the threshold value is set, products re­cog­nized as de­fect­ive can be re­jec­ted. The DCR 1048i OCV of­fers sys­tem op­er­at­ors an ef­fi­cient and flex­ible solu­tion for their pro­duc­tion pro­cess. 

Simple setup, ef­fi­cient de­tec­tion

Per­form­ance, flex­ib­il­ity and us­ab­il­ity are what count when it comes to im­age pro­cessing sensor tech­no­logy for in­dus­tri­al auto­ma­tion. Leuze’s Simple Vis­ion sensors meet these re­quire­ments. They are as easy to op­er­ate as op­tic­al sensors, plus they are as power­ful as cam­era sys­tems. This concept is a quick and straight­for­ward in­tro­duc­tion to vis­ion tech­no­logy.

con­g­atec has ex­pan­ded its port­fo­lio with the conga-HPC/cBLS, which has been spe­cially de­veloped for power-hungry edge and in­fra­struc­ture ap­plic­a­tions. The new COM-HPC Cli­ent Size C (120x160 mm) mod­ules are based on the per­form­ance hy­brid ar­chi­tec­ture of the In­tel Core S pro­cessors (code­named Bart­lett Lake S) with up to 16 Ef­fi­cient (E) and up to 8 Per­form­ance (P) cores for up to 32 threads. These mod­ules are de­signed for ap­plic­a­tions de­mand­ing ex­cep­tion­al multi-core and multi-thread per­form­ance, large caches, vast memory ca­pa­cit­ies, high band­width, and ad­vanced I/O tech­no­lo­gies. Tar­get ap­plic­a­tions in­clude med­ic­al ima­ging, test & meas­ure­ment, com­mu­nic­a­tion & net­work­ing, re­tail, en­ergy, and bank­ing. Ad­di­tion­al use cases in­clude video sur­veil­lance for traffic mon­it­or­ing, as well as auto­ma­tion ap­plic­a­tions like op­tic­al in­spec­tion, which also be­ne­fit from the mod­ule’s en­hanced per­form­ance.

Up­grad­able al­tern­at­ive to mother­boards

The new mod­ules are par­tic­u­larly suit­able for high-per­form­ance real-time ap­plic­a­tions with work­load con­sol­id­a­tion. The firm­ware-in­teg­rated hy­per­visor-on-mod­ule fa­cil­it­ates dir­ect ac­cess to the be­ne­fits of sys­tem con­sol­id­a­tion. The mod­ule is an eco­nom­ic­al al­tern­at­ive to clas­sic mother­boards, par­tic­u­larly for ap­plic­a­tions that con­stantly re­quire max­im­um per­form­ance and there­fore reg­u­lar per­form­ance up­grades. Com­pared to mother­boards, stand­ard­ized COMs of­fer high scalab­il­ity and an easy up­grade path through a simple mod­ule ex­change, even across pro­cessor gen­er­a­tions. The ba­sic design does not need to be changed.

Ap­plic­a­tion-ready and avail­able as Hy­per­visor-on-Mod­ules

con­g­atec’s new conga-HPC/cBLS Com­puter-on-Mod­ules of­fer up to 42 PCIe lanes, in­clud­ing 16 lanes with PCIe Gen 5 and up to 12 lanes with PCIe Gen 4. The in­teg­rated In­tel® Graph­ics with up to 32 ex­e­cu­tion units de­liv­ers im­press­ive AI in­fer­ence per­form­ance for AI edge ap­plic­a­tions. Fast DDR5-4000 memory with ECC sup­port is avail­able for data-crit­ic­al ap­plic­a­tions. 

The new COM-HPC mod­ules are also avail­able as ap­plic­a­tion-ready, cus­tom-con­figured aReady.COMs, in­clud­ing val­id­ated pre-in­stalled and li­censed op­er­at­ing sys­tems such as ctrlX OS, Ubuntu, and/or RT-Linux. Op­tion­al fea­tures in­clude sys­tem con­sol­id­a­tion with aReady.VT and IoT con­nectiv­ity. For even faster time-to-mar­ket, the mod­ules can be pre­loaded with the cus­tom­er’s ap­plic­a­tion, en­abling users to simply plug them in­to their fin­ished sys­tems. With the firm­ware-in­teg­rated Hy­per­visor-on-Mod­ules, the COMs of­fer a highly eco­nom­ic­al and flex­ible solu­tion for sys­tem designs, re­pla­cing sev­er­al sys­tems in vari­ous use cases. Ex­amples in­clude test & meas­ure­ment sys­tems for visu­al­iz­a­tion, real-time con­trol of pro­duc­tion cells with HMIs and IoT gate­ways, and edge serv­ers in smart grids.

Ap­plic­a­tion de­velopers can also in­stall the new COM-HPC COMs on con­g­atec’s Mi­cro-ATX ap­plic­a­tion car­ri­er board  for COM-HPC cli­ent mod­ules. This provides im­me­di­ate ac­cess to the full be­ne­fits and im­prove­ments of the new mod­ules, in­clud­ing ul­tra-fast PCIe con­nectiv­ity.

The com­pact TBEC-S2-4RFID 4-chan­nel RFID in­ter­face for Eth­er­CAT from Turck is ideal for ap­plic­a­tions with lim­ited in­stall­a­tion space. Each of the four RFID chan­nels al­lows the con­nec­tion of up to 32 HF read/write heads in HF bus mode. This means that up to 128 HF read/write heads can be ac­com­mod­ated on the en­tire mod­ule with di­men­sions of 32 x 144 x 32 mm. This ef­fect­ively re­duces costs for ap­plic­a­tions with many con­sec­ut­ive read points, such as in in­t­ra­lo­gist­ics or on pro­duc­tion lines in the auto­mot­ive in­dustry or in mech­an­ic­al en­gin­eer­ing.

For de­cent­ral­ized con­cepts

The ver­sat­ile Eth­er­CAT mod­ule is com­pat­ible with all HF and UHF read/write devices that sup­port con­nec­tion to the RFID in­ter­face. The high de­gree of pro­tec­tion to IP67/68/69K al­lows the mod­ule to be moun­ted dir­ectly on the ma­chine, which sig­ni­fic­antly shortens the wir­ing pro­cess and sup­ports de­cent­ral­ized mod­u­lar sys­tem con­cepts. For users re­quir­ing ad­di­tion­al di­git­al in­puts and out­puts for sensors, ac­tu­at­ors and lights, Turck of­fers the TBEC-LL-4RFID-8DXP mod­ule with eight ad­di­tion­al uni­ver­sal chan­nels and M12 con­nec­tions for power and Eth­er­net con­nec­tions.
 

RAFI has de­veloped and pro­duced a state-of-the-art dis­play sys­tem with ca­pa­cit­ive touch func­tion­al­ity for the UNITED GRIND­ING Group. UNITED GRIND­ING is one of the world's lead­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers of grind­ing ma­chines, EDM ma­chines, laser ma­chines, meas­ur­ing ma­chines and ma­chine tools for ad­dit­ive man­u­fac­tur­ing. The 23.8" full HD multi-touch dis­play is a stand­ard­ised solu­tion for the en­tire ma­chine range across all brands with­in the group. It of­fers an in­tu­it­ive and user-friendly touch in­ter­face in ad­di­tion to en­hanced func­tion­al­ity. Based on RAFI's GLASSCAPE tech­no­logy plat­form, the in­put and dis­play sys­tem of­fers smart­phone-like ease of use. It also re­ceived a 'Spe­cial Men­tion' at the UX Design Awards for its ex­cep­tion­al user and cus­tom­er ex­per­i­ence. Ed­it­able role pro­files, in­di­vidu­al user cus­tom­isa­tion and com­pat­ib­il­ity with II­oT-level di­git­al net­works com­plete the com­pre­hens­ive fea­ture set. 

High res­ol­u­tion video sup­port

The HD­Ba­seT stand­ard gate­way de­veloped by RAFI en­ables a slim device design. This elim­in­ates the need for ad­di­tion­al con­trol units and cool­ing sys­tems with­in the dis­play pan­el. HD­Ba­seT tech­no­logy of­f­loads sig­nal con­trol and data trans­mis­sion to the ma­chine's CPU. The HD­Ba­seT in­ter­face provides real-time, lossless trans­mis­sion of video and au­dio sig­nals, user in­put and USB com­mu­nic­a­tions, as well as In­ter­net and net­work pro­to­cols. Data rates of up to 8 Gbps also sup­port 4K res­ol­u­tion video trans­mis­sion.

Vari­able in­put op­tions 

There is plenty of space for in­tu­it­ive user in­ter­faces with in­di­vidu­ally con­fig­ur­able, self-ex­plan­at­ory icons on the large dis­play di­ag­on­al. RAFI has in­teg­rated ul­tra-flat ac­tu­at­ors from the RAFIX 30 FS+ series in­to the con­sole of the swiv­el and tilt pan­el be­low the dis­play. RAFIX ac­tu­at­ors com­bined with MI­CON 5S mi­croswitches provide pre­cise tact­ile feed­back, ex­cep­tion­al switch­ing re­li­ab­il­ity and min­im­ised space re­quire­ments. A USB feed-through from the RAFIX 22 FS+ series is used for data trans­mis­sion. The LUMOTAST 16, renowned for its re­li­ab­il­ity in ma­chine and plant con­struc­tion, is used as the emer­gency stop key switch. An op­er­at­ing high­light is the in­duct­ive rotary switch with over­ride func­tion, which al­lows all ma­chine move­ments to be lim­ited in a co­ordin­ated and in­fin­itely vari­able man­ner via a rotary in­put. The sys­tem now fea­tures auto­mat­ic radar user de­tec­tion and an in­teg­rated front cam­era, en­abling dir­ect video calls with the UNITED GRIND­ING Group's Cus­tom­er Care Team.
 

The Tuna T-MINI Check­weigh­er is de­signed for the iden­ti­fic­a­tion and re­jec­tion of faulty products, de­tec­ted by weigh­ing the fin­ished products sep­ar­ately as they pass through the belt of the sta­tion. The T-MINI Check­weigh­er, which can be eas­ily ad­ap­ted to the cus­tom­er's needs thanks to its mod­u­lar struc­ture, has been de­signed to meet the strict reg­u­la­tions of the food and phar­ma­ceut­ic­al sec­tors. The belt is suit­able for open foods, car­ri­er trays and body are man­u­fac­tured from stainles steel. 

The Tuna T-MINI eas­ily mon­it­ors the status of your pro­duc­tion line in real time with ad­vanced graph­ic­al charts, thanks to its easy-to-use soft­ware and easy-to-read 10" col­our touch screen. Up to 256 dif­fer­ent product re­cipes can be stored and the USB in­ter­face al­lows easy ex­pan­sion, in­clud­ing stor­age of re­ports, and products out of spe­cific­a­tion can be sep­ar­ated from the pro­duc­tion line with mul­tiple re­ject scales with aud­ible and visu­al warn­ings. It of­fers re­mote ac­cess to pro­duc­tion stat­ist­ics and re­port re­triev­al.
 

Hilscher has in­tro­duced a new SPE Me­dia Switch de­signed to in­teg­rate Single Pair Eth­er­net (SPE) in­to in­dus­tri­al Eth­er­net net­works. The new SPE Me­dia Switch, based on Hilscher’s mul­ti­pro­tocol-cap­able netX90 com­mu­nic­a­tion con­trol­ler, provides seam­less con­nectiv­ity for SPE ap­plic­a­tions with PROFINET, Open Mod­bus/TCP, and Eth­er­Net/IP net­works. This ready-to-use device of­fers a cost-ef­fect­ive solu­tion for im­ple­ment­ing SPE in in­dus­tri­al field en­vir­on­ments.

The SPE Me­dia Switch en­ables seam­less IP-based com­mu­nic­a­tion from sensors to the cloud without the need for ad­di­tion­al, ex­pens­ive net­work com­pon­ents. This al­lows devices to be eas­ily and af­ford­ably con­nec­ted over dis­tances of up to 1.000 meters us­ing the 10BASE-T1L stand­ard, mak­ing it ideal for large pro­duc­tion fa­cil­it­ies or widely dis­trib­uted ap­plic­a­tions.

As a mem­ber of both the Single Pair Eth­er­net Sys­tem Al­li­ance (SPE SA) and the SPE In­dus­tri­al Part­ner Net­work (SPE PN), Hilscher sup­ports both SPE con­nect­or stand­ards. The SPE Me­dia Switch is com­pat­ible with IEC 63171-2 (SPE SA) and IEC 63171-6 (SPE PN) con­nect­ors, giv­ing users the flex­ib­il­ity to choose the op­tion that best meets their needs.

The SPE Me­dia Switch is based on Hilscher’s netX 90 com­mu­nic­a­tion con­trol­ler, of­fer­ing users sev­er­al ad­vant­ages:

• A mul­ti­pro­tocol com­mu­nic­a­tion plat­form with uni­fied in­ter­faces, drivers, and tools from a single source
• netX 90 se­cur­ity-ready ar­chi­tec­ture with in­teg­rated se­cur­ity com­pon­ents
• En­ergy ef­fi­ciency with low power con­sump­tion and min­im­al heat gen­er­a­tion
• A de­vel­op­ment board with netX 90 and SPE PHYs for build­ing cus­tom SPE-en­abled field devices 

In PROFINET and Eth­er­Net/IP net­works, the SPE Me­dia Switch can op­er­ate in either trans­par­ent or con­figured modes. In trans­par­ent mode, data is simply routed through the SPE Me­dia Switch, which is in­vis­ible to the con­trol­ler. In con­figured mode, the switch is mapped in the con­trol­ler and can, for ex­ample, be as­signed a fixed IP ad­dress. For Open Mod­bus/TCP net­works, only trans­par­ent mode is avail­able.

Rate lim­iter en­sures re­li­able data trans­fer

To en­sure stable net­work per­form­ance and re­li­able data trans­fer, Hilscher has in­teg­rated a rate lim­iter func­tion in­to the SPE Me­dia Switch. This fea­ture helps pre­vent data loss when band­width de­creases from 100 Mbit In­dus­tri­al Eth­er­net to 10 Mbit SPE.  

The unique rate lim­iter func­tion man­ages net­work traffic dur­ing high data loads by pri­or­it­iz­ing and pro­cessing In­dus­tri­al Eth­er­net frames based on pre­defined para­met­ers. Ad­di­tion­ally, a flow meter mech­an­ism al­loc­ates band­width across vari­ous types of mes­sages. For ex­ample, a min­im­um of 5 Mbit can be re­served for In­dus­tri­al Eth­er­net mes­sages from PROFINET and Eth­er­Net/IP in the SPE net­work, while up to 3 Mbit is al­loc­ated to uni­cast mes­sages, and a max­im­um of 1 Mbit for mul­tic­ast or broad­cast mes­sages with lower pri­or­ity.
 

With the Omniport 40, E+E Elektronik is launching the new generation of its handheld measuring device. The Omniport 40 is characterised by a wide range of measurement options with up to seven measurement variables, maximum comfort and high efficiency. The device is particularly well suited for applications in the fields of maintenance, process monitoring and service. Combined with an integrated oil database, extensive data logging functions and a user-friendly and flexible operation, the Omniport 40 is the ideal companion for demanding applications in the field or during maintenance work.

The Omniport 40 handheld measuring device has been redesigned both visually and technically and offers a wide range of measuring options. A variety of parameters such as temperature, humidity, flow, dew point (down to -60° Td), oil moisture or CO₂ can be accurately measured on site with a single instrument using a wide range of handheld and process sensors. This saves the time required for individual measurements. All instruments are supplied with a 2.2 calibration certificate and the connected sensors can be adjusted directly from the handheld, depending on the type: 1-point, 2-point, offset or gain.

Automatic sensor detection

The Omniport 40 allows the parallel connection and use of up to two sensors. The sensors are automatically recognised. The user benefits from maximum convenience thanks to the simple interchangeability of sensors and the ability to record several measurement variables simultaneously. This not only saves time and reduces potential sources of error. It also significantly increases the efficiency of data acquisition and analysis. In addition, the Omniport 40 offers a comprehensive data logging function that can store up to 1 million data records. This makes it possible to store a large amount of measurement data over a long period of time without the need for regular export. The stored data can be retrieved at any time. The large storage capacity reduces administration costs and increases the efficiency of data evaluation.

Predefined measurement points 

The Omniport 40's data logging function allows measurements to be recorded at pre-defined points. This allows the user to define precise measurement points and make recurring measurements, ensuring structured and efficient data collection. This not only ensures consistency of measurement data, but also reduces the amount of manual input required. Streamlined data collection increases accuracy and helps the user to conduct meaningful analysis in less time without wasting valuable resources.

The integrated oil library enables precise monitoring of moisture in oil and water activity in different types of oil. Users can access an extensive selection of oil data or add own data to precisely take into account the specific properties of the oil used. This function ensures reliable monitoring of the oil quality, prevents potential damage, and extends the service life of the systems. At the same time, maintenance costs can be reduced thanks to the early detection of signs of wear.  
 

FLUX uses Giant Magneto Impedance (GMI) technology for encoders, setting new standards for precision and adaptability in a wide range of applications. GMI technology is a principle that has been around for a long time, but is now being used in a way that is transforming encoder technology. The GMI effect involves the change in impedance of a material when exposed to an external magnetic field, which can then be used to measure rotational or linear motion with unprecedented accuracy.

FLUX's GMI encoders exploit this principle to deliver performance beyond the limits of traditional sensors. Their advanced design makes them ideal for machine tools, gyro-stabilised platforms and high-performance test benches.

Encoder Portfolio

FLUX has 2 main product lines using GMI technology: 
GMI® Angle Encoders (GMI-ANG Series) provide ultra-fast and accurate angle measurements in arc seconds, making them perfect for demanding applications where high standards are required.
GMI® Rotary Encoders (GMI-ROT Series) offer the benefits of GMI technology in a compact space, solving challenges where traditional encoders fall short.

Applications that benefit 

Machine tools: GMI angle encoders feature a bearingless design that eliminates the wear problems associated with conventional encoders. They offer real-time data acquisition with angular accuracy of ±4 arc seconds, ensuring optimum performance even in harsh environments.

Gyro-stabilised platforms: Used in cameras and optical devices, these platforms require encoders that can withstand vibration and temperature extremes. GMI encoders meet these requirements with their compact design, high resolution and resistance to thermal drift.

Test stands: For material and product testing, where extreme accelerations and speeds are common, FLUX encoders provide accurate results unaffected by high vibration or rapid changes in motion.
 

The new Mi­cro­son­ic bks+ web edge sensors are equipped with the latest IO-Link ver­sion 1.1.3. This en­ables seam­less in­teg­ra­tion in­to mod­ern pro­duc­tion en­vir­on­ments and fur­ther op­tim­ises mon­it­or­ing of the ma­ter­i­al po­s­i­tion. The web edge sensors of­fer a wide work­ing range of 12 mm or 40 mm. The sensors are avail­able with a fork width of 30 or 60 mm and of­fer ro­bust and very com­pact met­al hous­ings.

Res­ist­ant to dust 

The web edge sensors en­able non-con­tact web guid­ing of highly trans­par­ent films, pa­per and oth­er sound-im­per­meable ma­ter­i­als such as cor­rug­ated card­board, tex­tiles or rub­ber. When used in dusty and dirty en­vir­on­ments, the ro­bust sensors are clearly su­per­i­or to op­tic­al solu­tions. The po­s­i­tion of the web edge is cru­cial for the web guide con­trol and for en­sur­ing that the ma­ter­i­al web al­ways stays ‘on track’. The ul­tra­son­ic web edge sensors mon­it­or the ma­ter­i­al po­s­i­tion with the highest pre­ci­sion (0.1mm), en­abling real-time ad­just­ments, e.g. for bat­tery films.

The IO-Link in­ter­face en­ables the seam­less ex­change of pro­cess and ser­vice data between the sys­tem con­trol and the bks+. Com­mis­sion­ing, op­er­a­tion and main­ten­ance of the ma­chine or sys­tem are sim­pli­fied; per­form­ance and avail­ab­il­ity are in­creased. The ul­tra­son­ic web edge sensors are pre­set and ready for im­me­di­ate use. Al­tern­at­ively the switch­able ana­logue out­put works with 4–20 mA or 0–10 V.
 

The JUMO  DE­LOS S02 is a comapct, re­li­able trans­mit­ter that of­fers high pro­cess re­li­ab­il­ity and ac­cur­acy. In ad­di­tion to a clas­sic ana­log out­put, the di­git­al and in­nov­at­ive tech­no­lo­gies IO-Link and Single Pair Eth­er­net (SPE) are avail­able as in­ter­face. There­fore the devices can be used in many dif­fer­ent in­dus­tries.

The pres­sure trans­mit­ter is used to ac­quire re­l­at­ive and ab­so­lute pres­sures in li­quid and gaseous me­dia with a high de­gree of pro­cess re­li­ab­il­ity through max­im­um ac­cur­acy and long-term sta­bil­ity. Meas­ur­ing ranges are from 0.4 to 60 bar re­l­at­ive or 0.4 to 60 bar ab­so­lute.

App con­fig­ur­able 

The suc­cessor for the cur­rent JUMO DE­LOS SI can be con­figured via Bluetooth/app or IO-Link. Thanks to the Eth­er­net-cap­able (Single Pair Eth­er­net/SPE) ver­sion and the cloud con­nec­tion, it is used in a wide range of in­dus­tries (food and bever­age, wa­ter and wastewa­ter, heat­ing and air con­di­tion­ing, mech­an­ic­al and plant en­gin­eer­ing, test equip­ment con­struc­tion, and labor­at­or­ies).

The JUMO DE­LOS S02 is ab­so­lutely user-friendly and the wide range of ver­sions and in­ter­faces en­ables a tail­or-made se­lec­tion for the re­spect­ive area of ap­plic­a­tion.
 

ifm presents new in­duct­ive prox­im­ity sensors in full met­al hous­ings in three sizes for safety ap­plic­a­tions: M12, M18 and M30 with a hous­ing length of 60 mm. For use in mo­bile ma­chinery, they are de­signed for a tem­per­at­ure range of -40°C to +85°C; for food ap­plic­a­tions, the tem­per­at­ure range is -25°C to +100°C. There are six dif­fer­ent types of the new sensors, which are suit­able for ap­plic­a­tions up to SIL-2 ac­cord­ing to IEC 61508 or PL d ac­cord­ing to EN ISO 13849. The con­nec­tion tech­no­logy is based on well-proven M12 con­nect­ors.

Mo­bile ma­chine mon­it­or­ing

The ro­bust full met­al hous­ing ef­fect­ively pro­tects the sensor against harsh en­vir­on­ment­al con­di­tions. Shocks and vi­bra­tions do not pose a prob­lem. Un­like mod­els with a plastic front, there are no prob­lems with per­meation through the ma­ter­i­al. This makes the sensors ex­tremely dur­able and min­im­ises the risk of mal­func­tion. 

A typ­ic­al ap­plic­a­tion in the food in­dustry is the mon­it­or­ing of man­holes in tanks, silos and oth­er large con­tain­ers. Ac­cess to these must be re­li­ably mon­itored to pre­vent haz­ards to per­son­nel. Man­holes must also be re­li­ably mon­itored when mo­bile ma­chinery is in op­er­a­tion. This ap­plies, for ex­ample, to debris hop­pers in road sweep­ers. An­oth­er ap­plic­a­tion is the mon­it­or­ing of jibs on mo­bile cranes on trucks. The crane is only al­lowed to lift loads when the out­rig­gers are ex­ten­ded and lowered. The new full met­al in­duct­ive prox­im­ity sensors are ideal for this and many oth­er safety ap­plic­a­tions.