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By most measures, and according to most observers, the manufacturing economy continues to hum along. U.S. manufacturing has been in growth mode for several years, although the rate of growth has slowed, and most are predicting that it will continue to slow throughout 2019.
With AGVs, a primary bottleneck on productivity is battery life. But when looking at an AGV as a full system, there are plenty of ways this bottleneck can be widened.
Autonomous vehicles (AVs), in particular, are set to utilize sensors for a multiple array of new technologies. In fact, lidar sensors may be the key to unlocking the potential of driverless cars in the future.
Cylindrical gear design can be divided into three steps. In the first step, rough gear pair dimensions such as center distance and face width are being estimated. Center distance and face width are directly linked to the available space (housing dimensions) and influence the overall size, weight and cost of the gears.
Power density is a key factor in gear design. Increasing the power density enables engineers to use smaller gears for their applications which lead to smaller and lighter gear boxes. The benefit for example for the automotive industry is less moving load in the vehicles and therefor a reduction of fuel consumption and subsequently a reduction of CO2 emission. The limiting factor for the increase in power density of gears is the material strength in regard to the critical failure mode.
It was recently announced that the planet Mars has at least one thing in common with planet Earth: all good things come to an end. In this case, the good thing is the recently announced and documented (Feb. 12) demise of the Mars rover Opportunity.