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The Magnetic Gearing and Turbine Corp. (MGT), founded by Australian inventor Andrew French in 2000, manufactures injection molded gears and couplings based entirely on magnetic technology. The repulsive magnetic forces are used to transmit power without losing any energy, and drive shafts rotate completely independently of each other.
Scientists have been hard at work creating a robotic system with the capabilities to sweep and collect
garbage in urban environments. This real-world Wall-E is known as the DustBot, aimed at designing, developing, testing and demonstrating a system for improving the management of urban hygiene.
While gear and bearing manufacturers engage in a wind energy arms race, the robotic automation industry has its sights set directly on the sun. Solar power—wind energy’s somewhat neglected step brother—has been gaining ground in alternative energy since 2001.
In the history of machine tools, spindles have been very good relative
to other bearings and structures on
the machine. So quality professionals
have developed a cache of tools—-ball
bars, grid encoders displacement lasers, etc.—-to help them characterize and understand the geometry of the structural loop. But as machine tools have improved in their capability and precision, and the demands of part-geometry and
surface finish have become more critical, errors in spindles have become a larger percentage of the total error.
Now more than ever, manufacturing companies are examining what steps need to be taken to ensure improvements to machine reliability by predicting system failures and minimizing downtime.