DESIGN WORLD AUGUST 2018

www.designworldonline.com

August 2018

inside: Motion Control: 3 tips for reducing heat

when operating an open-loop step motor

p. 86

3D CAD: Designing for additive

manufacturing is different

p. 98

Electronics: “Robots, activate!�

p. 110

How

smart plastics help build engines page 22

AUGUST 2018 DW COVER_FINAL.indd 1

7/30/18 12:42 PM

What’s in

Features galore AND a PLC inside A fully functional PLC is built in to the GS4 drive. Capable of up to 10k steps, it’s perfect for drive-related logic requirements. Control the drive and I/O with standard ladder logic (and our FREE downloadable PLC software, GS-Logic). Advanced PLC features include 32-bit math, Gray Code, drive frequency control, read/write drive parameters, real-time clock/calendar with support for daylight savings time and full drive PID control. And it’s all on-board!

Safe Torque Off The Safe Torque Off (STO) function is a basic driveintegrated safety feature. Use this input signal to ensure that no torque-generating energy can flow to the motor. This function is often used in emergency stop situations and/or to prevent unintentional motor starting.

100kA SCCR rating A 100kA Short Circuit Current Rating (SCCR) is required for personnel safety in many factory environments and to meet a host of regulatory requirements including: • NEC Article 409 • UL508A • NFPA70E SCCR is defined as the maximum short circuit current a component or assembly can safely withstand when protected by a specific overcurrent protective device, or for a specified time interval. The use of high-speed class J or class T fuses on the incoming power is required for these installations.

50°C rating The excellent heatsink design of the GS4 series provides a 50°C rating, allowing the GS4 drives to operate in harsh ambient conditions (that’s 122°F!). GS4 series drives can also be “flange mounted” - see details at right. This allows the use of a smaller enclosure, or reduces the need to cool the enclosure, or both!

You have several I/O choices:

6 Digital Inputs 6 Relay Outputs

4 Digital Inputs 2 Digital Outputs

Fire mode Run Fire mode during emergencies for uninterrupted smoke removal and system pressure. Sometimes called “run until destruction” mode, this feature should be used as a measure of last resort; it can be useful, even life-saving in certain situations (keeping a stairwell clear of smoke, for instance).

The drive will ignore all alarm inputs, and reset immediately on any trips. Use with caution, especially during any testing that is required.

25+ Helpful videos with more added every week! http://go2adc.com/gs4-vids

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Capable d logic andard oftware, h, Gray ameters, ngs time

Circulative control mode and multi-motor control

DURA

The GS4 drives offer five different control modes for circulation pump control. A single GS4 can control up to 8 motors in a cyclic or cascading fashion by using a combination of VFD control and across-the-line control. Relay outputs on the drive operate contactors that allow the VFD to control one or more motors, while additional relay outputs provide across-the-line control of other motors via separate contactors.

PULSE GS

4

driveure that r. This and/or

ired for to meet

rrent a otected pecified T fuses ons.

PID control – including sleep and wake The GS4 series drives support full PID control to automatically apply accurate and responsive corrections to a control function with external influences. Proportional, Integral, Derivative (PID) control is a mainstay in industrial control, bringing complex processes up to speed with little or no overshoot, or controlling pressure, force, feed rate, flow rate, position, etc.

vides a n harsh ves can allows to cool

smoke un until measure certain stance). ediately testing

y week! gs4-vids

The Sleep Mode function is actuated when the frequency of the output command or the feedback signal falls below the Sleep Reference point for a specified period of time. When asleep, the drive output is off and it simply monitors Wake-up Reference point. A separate Wake-up Delay Time can be used to delay the Wake-Up routine.

Flange mounting

Cooling is outside enclosure

All GS4 drives up to 215 HP can be “flange mounted”, a through-mounting technique that puts the drive’s heatsinks on the outside of the enclosure. This allows the use of a smaller enclosure, or reduces the need to cool the enclosure, or both! The smaller A through C frame drives have optional

flange mount kits, while the D through F frame models come with the flanges already attached. The largest G frame drive isn’t normally mounted in an enclosure, so it doesn’t have provisions for flange mounting.

All the above plus much more starting at only $422.00, check out the DURAPULSE GS4 Series of AC drives at www.go2adc.com/GS4 GET MORE THAN YOU PAID FOR

Order Today, Ships Today! * See our Web site for details and restrictions. © Copyright 2014 AutomationDirect, Cumming, GA USA. All rights reserved.

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Up to 300HP! The DURApulse GS4 series of Variable Frequency Drives (VFD) includes many of the same standard features as our other GS drives including dynamic braking, PID, removable keypad, plus so much more: • Single-phase input capability on all 230VAC models • V/Hz control or sensorless vector control for improved speed regulation • 100kA Short Circuit Current Rating (SCCR) • 50°C temperature rating plus flange mount capability for industrial environments • STO - Safe Torque Off (TUV certified)

• Built-in PLC (up to 10k steps) for drive-related logic and I/O control • Built-in analog, discrete, high-speed and relay I/O with expansion capabilities • Serial MODBUS RTU/ ASCII and BACnet protocols included • Optional Ethernet cards include MODBUS TCP and EtherNet/IP™ protocols

• GS4 QuickStart menus simplify configuration • Smart keypad stores up to four sets of drive configurations for back-up and transfer to additional GS4 drives • Fire mode and circulative control mode • Field upgradeable firmware • Free drive configuration and PLC Programming software

Upgrade I/O capabilities AND communications options

4 Digital Inputs 2 Digital Outputs

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EtherNet/IP™

Modbus TCP

Research, price, buy at:

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Order Today, Ships Today! * See our Web site for details and restrictions. © Copyright 2017 AutomationDirect, Cumming, GA USA. All rights reserved.

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Automation & Control Freak?

Same here.

We carry more automation & control brand names than any other distributor in North America.

It’s true – we checked.

Get your A&C fill at Allied Electronics 2-18 - spread_DW.indd 3

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NEW!

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from

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On the lookout for better products One of the many ways that our publication has helped our readers over the past dozen years has been to present new products across the mechanical and electrical engineering space. Even amongst the more mature corners of our coverage, there are constantly new and improved components being unveiled.

We strive to bring you news about these advances, give you the specification data that you need, and then show you interesting application stories where they’re making a difference for design engineers.

I’m excited to tell you about a new program that our company, WTWH Media is starting this year. We’re launching the inaugural Leadership in Engineering Achievement Program (LEAP) Awards. This design engineering product competition will honor the most exciting new products in a host of technology areas, across three of our company’s flagship brands: Design World, Fluid Power World and EE World.

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LEAP will honor the best designs in these 14 categories:

• Additive Manufacturing • Advanced Materials • Analog Electronics • Connectivity • Embedded Computing • Fastening & Joining • Hydraulics

• Industrial Automation • Mechanical • Motion Control • Pneumatics • Power Electronics • Switches & Sensors, and • Test & Measurement

What I’m most proud of with this new program is the involvement of the engineering community. What’s different with LEAP is that no one here at WTWH will be involved in the actual selection of the winners. Instead, our editorial team is assembling an independent judging panel, comprised of a cross-section of OEM design engineers and academics. This judging team will be solely responsible for the final results.

For this year’s awards competition, products must have been released within the past two years and be available for commercial purchase in the United States. Finalists will be announced in the November issue. Winners will be announced at an awards banquet in conjunction with DeviceTalks West in Orange County, California on December 11, and then you’ll be able to read about them here in the December issue. Stay tuned. DW

(510) 471-4000

Paul J. Heney - VP, Editorial Director pheney@wtwhmedia.com

30097 Ahern Avenue Union City, CA 94587

On Twitter @ DW—Editor

Te c h n i c a l S u p p o r t

(408) 460-1345

4

August 2018 www.designworldonline.com DESIGN WORLD

Insights 8-18_Vs2.LL.indd 4

7/27/18 9:41 AM

The Secret To Keeping Electronics Cool!

NEMA 12 Cabinet Coolers The NEMA 12 Cabinet Coolers for large heat loads up to 5,600 Btu/hr. are ideal for PLCs, line control cabinets, CCTV cameras, modular control centers, etc.

• Measures 8" (203mm) high • Mounts top, side or bottom • Enclosure remains dust-tight and oil-tight

NEMA 4 and 4X Cabinet Coolers NEMA 4 and 4X Cabinet Coolers for large heat loads up to 5,600 Btu/hr. They are ideal for PLCs and modular controls.

• Enclosure remains dust-tight, oil-tight and splash resistant • Suitable for wet locations where coolant spray or hose down can occur

Type 316 Stainless Steel Cabinet Coolers Type 316 Stainless Steel Cabinet Coolers for NEMA 4X applicat-ions are available for heat loads up to 5,600 Btu/hr.

• Resists harsh environments not suitable for Type 303/304 • Ideal for food and chemical processing, pharmaceutical, foundries, heat treating and other corrosive environments

Mini NEMA 12, 4, and 4X Cabinet Coolers

DON’T DO THIS!

It is an OSHA violation that presents a shock hazard to personnel.

The fan blows hot, humid, dirty air at the electronics.

Refrigerant panel air conditioners cause condensation and moisture.

When condensation is present, electrical components can begin to erode, resulting in severe damage.

A bad choice could cost you thousands!

Look Familiar?

When hot weather causes the electronics inside a control cabinet to fail, there is a panic to get the machinery up and running again. The operator might choose to simply open the panel door and aim a fan at the circuit boards. In reality, the fan ends up blowing a lot of hot, humid, dirty air at the electronics and the cooling effect is minimal. If the machinery starts functioning again, the likelihood of repeated failure is great since the environment is still hot (and threatens permanent damage to the circuit boards). Worse yet, that open panel door is an OSHA violation that presents a shock hazard to personnel.

The Real Solution!

Stop electronic downtime with an EX AIR Cabinet Cooler® System! The complete line of low cost Cabinet Cooler Systems are in stock and can ship now. They mount in minutes through an ordinary electrical knockout and have no moving parts to wear out. Thermostat control to minimize compressed air use is available for all models. All Cabinet Coolers are UL Listed to US and Canadian safety standards.

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High Temperature Cabinet Coolers for NEMA 12, 4 and 4X applications are available for heat loads in many capacities up to 5,600 Btu/hr.

• Measures 5" (127mm) high • Mounts top, side or bottom • Enclosure remains dust-tight and oil-tight

• Suitable for ambients up to 200°F (93°C) • Ideal for mounting near ovens, furnaces, and other hot locations

“It took us three days to get a replacement computer cabinet and we didn’t want to risk another heat failure. Fans weren’t an option since they would just blow around a lot of hot air. Freon-type air conditioners like those on some of our other machines were a constant maintenance project of their own. We purchased EXAIR’s Model 4330 NEMA 12 Cabinet Cooler Jeff Hauck, Lasercraft Inc. Cincinnati OH System since it was easy to install and requires no maintenance.”

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BE AWARE OF CONDENSATION!

NHP Cabinet Coolers keep a slight positive pressure on the enclosure to keep dirt from entering through small holes or conduits. For use in nonhazardous locations.

• Uses only 1 SCFM in purge mode • For heat loads up to 5,600 Btu/hr.

• NEMA 12, 4 and 4X

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7/27/18 9:28 AM

Teschler on Topic

Accountability on the road to ruin I once worked at an organization where the boss kept his most powerful management technique secret from his superiors.

His secret sauce was the practice of in-depth peer reviews among professionals on the staff. Before any work left the department, it got scrutiny from other engineers there.

And the review process was anything but perfunctory. Nobody wanted to look like a schmuck to their colleagues, so everyone made sure all the details of their work were above reproach. As a result, the output of that department was bulletproof.

The reason for keeping this review process secret was that it couldn’t be quantified. These comprehensive reviews took time. And the organization was big into metrics. The boss feared that his upper management would make him ash-can the whole review process because it was so “unproductive.”

He was right to worry, at least according to Catholic University of America history professor Jerry Z. Muller. Muller thinks organizations of all kinds see a need to quantify employee performance to the nth degree. One problem with this idea is that measurements have become a substitute for good judgment and exercising discretion. When managers

aren’t allowed to determine what a particular situation requires, they often have to contend with an ever-tighter web of rules designed to account for every conceivable circumstance.

Of course, measurements of work effort, which have become common in recent years, can be helpful when they expose real problems. But the side effects of trying to quantify every activity can be counterproductive, says Muller. One result has been a diminished faith in professional judgment and a closer (and I’d add, much more annoying) monitoring of professionals whose judgment has been cast into doubt. Another downside has been less autonomy for lower-level employees who get stuck with preparing a constant stream of reports.

All that report writing may have another sinister effect: In recent years, IT industries have been the only sector of the economy showing gains in productivity. Muller thinks it’s fair to ask whether the time spent writing morale-sapping reports, instead of actually doing work, contributes to this economic stagnation.

The fixation on quantifiable goals also has had a surprising outcome: Modern-day businesses now demonstrate some of the same intrinsic faults as the old Soviet bloc,

Muller says. Back in the days of the Cold War, central planners set output targets for factories, and Soviet managers responded by producing shoddy goods that met the numerical targets.

Muller says the modern version of this phenomenon can be found in schools that graduate pupils with minimal skills, police departments that downgrade grand theft to misdemeanor-level petty larceny, and banks that open dummy accounts for unknowing customers.

Perhaps worse is the reality that when companies worship metrics, anything that doesn’t push the organization closer to meeting targets is likely to be ignored. Short-term goals get more consideration than longterm aspirations. That attitude can discourage managers from taking hardto-quantify but potentially high-payoff risks and from following well-grounded hunches.

Unfortunately people employed by organizations run by spreadsheets don’t have a lot of options. One alternative: Go underground, like my boss way-back when, and hope management is too wrapped up in numbers to notice how the work really gets done. DW

Leland Teschler • Executive Editor lteschler@wtwhmedia.com On Twitter @ DW—LeeTeschler

6

August 2018 www.designworldonline.com

Lee Teschler Column 8-18_Vs2_LT.indd 6

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Technology Forward When will additive technology

compete with subtractive?

Sooner than many think if recent developments gain traction. The additive manufacturing industry continues to develop new and fascinating technology aimed at making parts fast in an additive (rather than subtractive) fashion.

One example is Evolve Additive

Solutions, a company headquartered in Minnetonka, MN, and with another facility in Rochester NY. This spin-off of Stratasys Ltd., has developed an additive technology that promises to be competitive with injection molding.

It uses a proprietary process it calls STEP, a layer-by-layer build process that has roots in microinjection molding. The goal of STEP is to deliver high-volume production additive manufacturing at breakthrough speeds compared to other commercially available additive processes. It is intended for high-volume production runs into the hundreds of thousands per year, with part costs on par with the costs from other manufacturing methods.

The parts made from this process have a surface finish and dimensional accuracy comparable to injection molding. For example, injection molding 2000 pieces of an ABS bracket takes about 25 sec per part at a cost of about

$2.64 per piece. Total production time is about 2 to 8 weeks. This information does not include the time to build a mold for injection molding. The Evolve system takes 1 day to build those 2000 pieces, at 14 sec build time a piece, at a cost of $1.38 per part. With the Evolve system, no mold is needed.

Another development comes from 3DEO, an employee-owned metal additive manufacturing company.

The employees have developed an innovative way to speed up the production of metal additive manufacturing. Using a technique President Matt Sand calls a cousin to binder jetting, it combines binder jetting with milling.

Noted Sand, typical binder jetting has a drawback in that the yield is usually 60%. 3DEO wanted to improve that figure. So the engineers stripped some complexity out of the binder jetting process. The machine uses a different spray system to spread the binder over the entire build bed. Then a CNC end mill cuts the perimeter of the part. The process of depositing binder on the next layer of metal and cutting out the perimeter repeats until the part is built.

Once built, the part is removed and goes through a sintering process in a MIM furnace to burn out the binder material.

One of the benefits of this approach is the quality of the surface finish.

Sand claims this process will reduce final part cost by as much as 80%, and is targeted at production volumes of 100 to more than 10,000 pieces. This type of system is a hybrid, combining additive and subtractive together.

The last recent example is Diabase Engineering, which is introducing its H-Series Machine, a hybrid machine tool combining additive, subtractive, and post-processing capabilities in a single build environment. According to the founders, (whose previous experience involved developing the Ninjaflex material) every subsystem and attachment solves a problem in the additive manufacturing toolchain.

Some key features of the H-Series are that it prints up to five materials, any material that can handle a temperature to 300 C; includes a high precision turret for rapid tool changes and removal of inactive nozzles to prevent contamination; an active nozzle cleaning system; touch probe z-measurement and software auto-leveling; a laser scanner (linear and rotary); subtractive tool heads for milling, engraving, and surfacing; and modular rotary axis for 4th and 5th axis printing and milling.

The creativity and inventiveness of additive technology keeps coming.

Stay tuned for more interesting developments. DW

Leslie Langnau • Managing Editor llangnau@wtwhmedia.com On Twitter @ DW_3Dprinting

8

August 2018 www.designworldonline.com

Tech Forward 8-18_Vs2.LL.indd 8

DESIGN WORLD

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7/27/18 9:33 AM

Green Engineering Ron Marshall

• Contributing Editor

Use utility incentives to buy new, more

energy-efficient equipment The purchase of air compressors can be expensive.

Sometimes, the untimely death of your equipment can stretch the maintenance budget — and repairing it can

leave you with the same old tired and inefficient machinery.

If and when problems happen, you should consider looking for assistance through various available energy incentives.

Let’s look at some examples of when this makes sense.

A small metal products fabricator needed a new 25-hp compressor due to ongoing maintenance issues with its old unit. The new variable speed drive unit was going to cost $22,000 — this would be about 30% more than a fixed speed unit. However, the variable compressor qualified for a $6,500 incentive and saved about $3,400 per year in electricity costs. Payback on the purchase worked out to a mere 1.3 years. Even better, the old unit remained as an emergency back-up.

For another example, a cabinet making manufacturer needed to replace its old, worn out compressor due to advanced age and an expensive upcoming rebuild. The company’s power utility had financial incentives available to pay for someone to come in and measure their system to recommend improvements. The auditor found that the manufacturer’s system was extremely inefficient and was wasting $9,400 per year in electricity costs.

A new variable speed compressor, upgraded energy efficient cycling dryer, and system storage receivers were recommended. Altogether, this was to cost about $45,000.

The energy savings generated a financial incentive of $20,300 to help pay for the replacement. The new project also eliminated a costly $15,000 rebuild of the old compressor. Simple payback for the project was a little more than one year.

There is an online database of energy programs accessible through the U.S. Department of Energy. Conduct a search for programs in your area. If you can’t find anything

DESIGN WORLD

Green Engineering 8-18 Vs2.LL.indd 11

in your area, the next step is to check with your power utility or compressor service provider to see if you can qualify for some support. In Canada, there are energy incentive in most provinces. These can quickly be found with an online search.

Database Link: https://bit.ly/2mhq4bE

Why pay for it all yourself? Take advantage of the energy rebates to renew your system and save energy for years to come! DW

www.designworldonline.com

August 2018

11

7/27/18 9:43 AM

Contents 8 • 2018

•

vol 13 no 8

•

designworldonline.com

Inside: Q&A: Universal Robots co-founder Esben Østergaard

•

Robots get a grip at Automatica

www.designworldonline.com

110

14

Fabulous new robots at Automatica. page 60

Robotics Cover_8-18_Vs1.indd 46

7/27/18 1:57 PM

46-84

86 _MOTION CONTROL

104 _MEDICAL

3 tips for reducing heat when operating an open-loop step motor

When to use complex injection molding for medical devices

Reduce motor heat by reducing idle

Complex injection molding can provide a

current and running current — or switch

medical device and equipment manu-

to closed-loop control.

facturer with competitive differentiation,

but it requires highly specialized equip-

ment, skills, and engineering expertise.

A Supplement to Design World - August 2018

A supplement of Design World August 2018

How to pick the how to get the most out of

additive manufacturing 118 Is additive right for your part?

Answer these 8 questions to find out.

COVER_MPF 8-18_FINAL.indd 117

90 _LINEAR MOTION

124

132 Ultrasonic additive manufacturing helps keep electronics warm in space

7/27/18 2:01 PM

117-137

Smooth moves

Self-synchronizing actuators can simplify

110 _ELECTRONICS

the automation of handling large or

“Robots, activate!”

awkward loads, and improve overall

The public’s rekindled fascination

system performance.

with robots has brought battling bot

technology back to TV screens.

98 _3D CAD Designing for additive manufacturing is different

To take full advantage of the design

capabilities available through additive

manufacturing, designers may require

a skills update.

ON THE COVER

138 _IMTS 2018 PREVIEW

The International Manufacturing

Energy chain systems from igus feature smart plastics technology to build more than 6,000 engines per week. | photo courtesy of igus

Technology Show is back in Chicago this year for the 32nd edition of the event. Here’s the need-to-know information.

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2018 Regional

2018 National

Fostering B2B editorial excellence

August 2018 www.designworldonline.com

CONTENTS 8-18_Vs2.LL.indd 12

Fostering B2B editorial excellence

2018 Regional

PR INT

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Revenue of over $3 million

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DESIGN WORLD

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6/26/18 7/27/18 12:24 9:32 PM AM

SEAL

8.18

• contents

and

departments

DELIVER

04 Insights 06 Teschler on Topic 08 Technology Forward 1 1 Green Engineering 16 Design For Industry 22 Design Notes 30 Internet of Things

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CONTENTS 8-18_second page_Vs1.indd 14

August 2018

DESIGN WORLD

7/31/18 1:23 PM

DESIGN WORLD

Follow the whole team on twitter @DesignWorld

EDITORIAL

CREATIVE SERVICES

DIGITAL MARKETING

VP, Editorial Director Paul J. Heney pheney@wtwhmedia.com @dw_editor

VP, Creative Services Mark Rook mrook@wtwhmedia.com @wtwh_graphics

Digital Marketing Director Virginia Goulding vgoulding@wtwhmedia.com @wtwh_virginia

Managing Editor Leslie Langnau llangnau@wtwhmedia.com @dw_3dprinting

Art Director Matthew Claney mclaney@wtwhmedia.com @wtwh_designer

Digital Marketing Specialist Anna Casey acasey@wtwhmedia.com @wtwh_anna

Executive Editor Leland Teschler lteschler@wtwhmedia.com @dw_leeteschler

Graphic Designer Allison Washko awashko@wtwhmedia.com @wtwh_allison

Webinar Manager Lisa Rosen lrosen@wtwhmedia.com

Senior Editor Miles Budimir mbudimir@wtwhmedia.com @dw_motion

Graphic Design Intern Anne West awest@wtwhmedia.com DIGITAL MEDIA/WEB/ DEVELOPMENT

Senior Editor Lisa Eitel leitel@wtwhmedia.com @dw_lisaeitel Senior Editor Mary Gannon mgannon@wtwhmedia.com @dw_marygannon Associate Editor Mike Santora msantora@wtwhmedia.com @dw_mikesantora

Web Development Manager B. David Miyares dmiyares@wtwhmedia.com @wtwh_webdave

Senior Digital Media Manager Patrick Curran pcurran@wtwhmedia.com @wtwhseopatrick VIDEO SERVICES

Director, Audience Development Bruce Sprague bsprague@wtwhmedia.com FINANCE

Controller Brian Korsberg bkorsberg@wtwhmedia.com

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Design for Industry Material Handling/conveying

A range of gear and drive systems for conveying

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Customization saves time and money. These modular, quick-connect drive systems can

be equipped with a variety of common industrial Ethernet communication protocol modules for remote monitoring and control of individual drive units. Plus, the units can be configured and supplied with plug connectors for power, photo eyes, sensors and standard field bus systems to allow for easy installation.

Products include: Helical-Bevel Gearbox: The 92.1 twostage helical bevel reducer offers up to 97% gear efficiency. Designed using finite element modeling technology with oversized output bearings, it offers extended service life even under high radial loads. With flexible mounting and shaft designs, product installation is fast.

Helical In-Line Gear Units: The NORDBLOC.1 suits a range of demanding applications from the highspeed conveying power needed in warehouse and package handling systems to pumping and mixing food products.

Permanent Magnetic Synchronous Motors: Like the gearboxes and drives used with new international airport baggage-handling systems, the IE4 Permanent Magnetic Synchronous Motors and VFDs can be pre-configured and delivered with customer-specified power connectors, and photo eye, sensor and high-speed Ethernet IP plugs for easy daisy-chain installation. Because the motor offers best-in-class power density, with energy efficient operation even at partial loads and reduced speeds, it provides low total cost of ownership and predictable load handling.

NORDAC LINK (SK250E Variable Frequency Drive): This family offers flexible drive capabilities for many application and supports decentralized installations. Installation is fast and simple, as is service. Integrated brake management assures wear-free actuation. Direct speed feedback with an incremental encoder on the motor generates the highest possible acceleration and guarantees full motor torque throughout the entire speed range.

LogiDrive integrated solution: If you combine the highly efficient gearbox, the permanent magnet IE4 motor, and the versatile NORDAC LINK VFD, you get NORD’s LogiDrive Solution. With this combination, you can achieve greater energy efficiency while reducing the number of product combinations for your entire system. This solution is available with power ratings between 1.5 and 7.5 HP and available for 50 Hz and 60 Hz power systems. DW

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Design for Industry material handling

Pin oven chains keep cans moving

Get What You Need in Just 1-Week!

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Cans are still the “classic” drinks packaging choice in the food and

beverage industry. After forming, one of the next high-speed production processes the cans undergo is painting. Specially developed roller chains have become the preferred conveying technology for this rapid transfer, during which the cans are held in place by protective heads connected to the chain by special transport pins.

Interpower helps you design, build, and maintain products for worldwide markets with a 1-week U.S. manufacturing lead-time on non-stock Interpower products. Whether it is a cord you have to have 20 feet long or an inlet you only need 46 pieces of, Interpower can have it to you in just 1 week. ®

These pin oven chains (POC) offer a number of advantages. The precision roller chains themselves are wear-resistant and treated with the lubricant IPP before they leave the factory. IPP is PWIS-free, non-drip, suitable for high temperatures and approved for use in the food industry.

Transport pins can be replaced easily without breaking the chain or removing it from the machine. Three different fixture possibilities are available – pins are integrated in the outer chain plates, secured with special nuts or fixed with split-pins. Users can also choose between two pin versions: flexible or snap-off. The flexible pin – for example after an accidental impact caused by a conveyor jam – can be quickly and easily bent back to its originally position by hand. The advantage of the snap-off pin is that it will break off in the event of a shock or accidental contact with an obstacle during operation. The snap-off solution is possible because both transport pins and chain pins have the hardness and thus the same wear resistance. This can be of importance when producing steel cans with a risk of jamming the production machines, when the pins do not break.

The length of the transport pins can also be adapted to the requirements of individual specifications.

Finally, the standard protective head is made from high-quality PEEK which is heat proof up to at least 260 °C and is resistant to a variety of chemicals. A high-temperature elastomer head (ECT) is also available as an alternative. With its design, it can be replaced easily without the need for complex tools and it is robust in everyday operation because its damping properties are similar to those of a spring. It is made from PWIS-free material that is approved for use in contact with food. DW

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O f f- S h o r e

Piston pump handles harsh environments

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The D1 High Power Open Circuit Axial Piston Pump is a high pressure, high flow variable displacement axial piston pump, developed for open circuit systems in extreme application environments. Its robust design suits mining, heavy duty construction, forestry, material handling and marine, oil and gas markets.

The addition of the D1 pump expands the Danfoss open circuit portfolio to include higher hydraulic power options — up to 160 gpm [600 lpm]. Working seamlessly with the PVG 128/256 high flow valves, designers can extend hydraulic support for high flow system needs.

The pump’s open circuit control options suit drill rigs, artificial lift systems, harvesters, mulchers, wheel loaders, dumpers, pipe-handling systems and more.

The pump is offered with: • Four displacement options from 130-260 cc • Pressure, load sense, power limiting and displacement controls • Output pressure up to 350 bar [5075 psi] continuously, 400 bar [5800 psi] intermittently • An integral charge pump allows the D1 pump to run at speeds up to 2500 rpm DW

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800-933-4915 WWW.TRIMLOK.COM INFO@TRIMLOK.COM August 2018

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7/27/18 11:27 AM

Design for Industry Safety

Automated barrier door protects

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employees from machinery

The Defender automated barrier door guards machinery, contains processes and

protects employees from robotic/machine movement zones. The door offers upgrades to its non-contact safety switch configuration, control systems and interlocking capabilities.

It features a more resilient curtain material that resists a wider array of application driven hazards and offers optional variable frequency drive to control curtain speed. In addition, it uses quick-disconnect cables for easier installation and integration.

The Defender high-speed, high-cycle automated door separates machine operators and manufacturing processes in robotic welding cells, material handling, automated assembly, palletizing/packaging machinery and other applications that require electronic safe guarding devices. It also contains fumes, sparks, smoke, mist, flying debris, excess noise and other common manufacturing process by-products. Additionally, the Defender’s roll-up design leaves a minimal footprint into the typically crowded manufacturing cell.

The Defender automated barrier door features several innovations, including: PLe hold-down mechanism, which locks the door in “down” position to allow for machine “de-energizing” time (necessitated by issues such as roll inertia in the paper industry.)

•

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• Redesigned rotary cam limit switch, encoder

positioning and variable frequency drive, to control the curtain’s operating speed and position, dramatically improving the adjustability of door position, speed and control.

• Non-contact interlock switches, manufactured

by Jokab, Pilz, Schmersal and Allen Bradley. These provide up to PLe specifications per EN ISO 13849-1 when integrated properly.

Designed with new EN 10218-2 specifications in mind. DW

Rite-Hite Machine Guarding www.ritehite.com

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Medical

For motion control innovation, Solution City never sleeps.

FDA approves combined surgical robot and planning software

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The Food and Drug Association (FDA) has recently cleared the use of Renishaw’s neuromate Gen III surgical robot with the neuroinspire surgical planning software in the USA. Both were previously cleared for use separately, but not in combination. This latest clearance means that neurosurgeons across America will now be able to deliver surgical plans created using neuroinspire software directly using the neuromate surgical robot, helping to improve patient outcomes.

The neuromate robotic system for stereotactic neurosurgery is a platform for several functional neurosurgical procedures. The neuromate robot has been used in thousands of procedures such as deep brain stimulation (DBS), stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG), biopsy and more.

The neuroinspire software assists with the planning of stereotactic procedures.

Using 3D patient scan data, neuroinspire software allows neurosurgeons to clearly visualize the safest surgical route to target. The software also allows neurosurgeons to visualize an image of implantable instruments in position along with a customizable safety zone.

Before obtaining this latest clearance, plans generated using neuroinspire software could be manually transferred onto a traditional stereotactic frame. With this latest clearance, customers can export surgical plans from neuroinspire software directly to the neuromate robot for efficient procedure execution.

“Hospitals in the UK and the rest of Europe are already using the neuromate surgical robot in combination with neuroinspire software,” explained Andrew Dissington, Senior Project Manager at Renishaw. “Now, patients across the US will be able to benefit from improved neuromate robot procedures for Parkinson’s, epilepsy and brain tumours.

“SEEG procedures for epilepsy can involve 20 electrodes being implanted into the brain,” added Dissington. “Robotic surgery is much quicker to deliver than manually using a frame. The approval means that existing neuromate surgical robot users are able to take advantage of this intuitive, user-friendly software package.” DW

Whatever keeps you up at night, we’ve got a solution—the largest selection of motors, pumps and air-moving devices available.

Plus, one-of-a-kind solutions ready to be custom-engineered for your precision industrial, commercial, combustion or transportation application.

If you can dream it, you’ll find it at Solution City.

Renishaw | www.renishaw.com/neuro

ametekdfs.com

100 East Erie Street • Kent, OH 44240

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7/27/18 11:32 AM

Design Notes

Smart plastics in action – isense EC.B modules from igus monitor the condition of the chain by means of a polymer wire inside the energy chain and a sensor unit.

How smart plastics

help build engines

Edited by Mary Gannon • Associate Editor

An engine manufacturer in Austria is using linear robots equipped with energy chain systems from igus that feature smart plastics technology to build more than 6,000 engines per week at the company’s production factory.

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igus introduced its “isense” line of smart plastics at Hannover Messe in 2016. Sensors and monitoring modules embedded in the technology allow manufacturers to record the condition of components and report them as soon as a replacement is necessary, which minimizes the risk of unplanned downtime and expensive production losses.

The energy chain systems used on the linear robots that handle the engine blocks operate continuously for 18-19 shifts per week, building more than 6,000 engines for the automobile company, which is based in Germany.

On average, one engine runs off the assembly line every 14 seconds. The energy chain systems that work with the linear robots quickly reach millions of cycles.

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MACRO MACRO CAPABILITIES. CAPABILITIES. REDUCING THE SIZE AND WEIGHT

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Design Notes Reduced weight, noise, and predictive maintenance Rather than steel chains commonly used to guide the moving cables on the linear robots, the manufacturer relies on the plastic energy chains from igus to minimize weight and noise. The “predictive maintenance” of the igus components adds to the advantages of the energy chain.

“This product family, which we have grouped under the brand name ‘isense,’ comprises various sensors and monitoring modules which can be equipped on the energy chain systems from igus,’’ said Michael Blass, an authorized officer of igus e-chain systems.

“Thanks to the digital networking of machines and products, it is possible to continuously record the condition of components and report them as soon as a repair or replacement is required. This networking system makes it possible to avoid unplanned plant downtimes and thus, expensive production losses.”

When igus presented the technology in 2016, the Austrian engine manufacturer took note of the “smart maintenance” capabilities. Teams from the engine builder and igus design engineers conducted their first tests in August 2016.

Abrasion and break monitoring In beta testing, engineers monitored for abrasion and break in the energy chains. The isense EC.W (“W” for “wear”) abrasion monitoring system, a sensor chip installed in the crossbar of the e-chain, continuously measures the condition of the sliding energy chain during travel. If the abrasion progressed so far that the end of the of the service life was approaching, the sensor would respond with a signal. The abrasion never progressed far enough to trigger an emergency notification.

Monitoring of the isense EC.B modules (“B” for “break”) examined the condition of the chain with the help of a polymer wire running within the energy chain. Before isense capability, visual inspections did not detect wear in the energy chain systems, but the chain failed two weeks later. Break monitoring takes the guesswork out of chain replacement.

At the beginning of the beta phase, engineers studied the workshop temperature and its influence on the chain. Engineers were required to determine limit values to distinguish between “normal” expansions and actual incidents.

The igus’ isense modules have been chosen as the “innovation of the month” at the Austrian plant. The engine manufacturer plans to equip 50-60 igus energy chain systems with break monitoring in its facility.

Three test systems are already operational, and one has reached the critical point where it must remain in real operation and the responsible machine setters must act. After a visual inspection, they can decide between a false alarm or if action is required. By doing so, the manufacturer can avoid expensive consequential damage during the beta phase and the linear robots can be safely moved. DW

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During a beta test, engineers monitored for abrasion and break in the energy chains.

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Greene Tweed Brings The Right FITT™ to the Next Industrial Revolution Factory Innovation, Technology Transformation, and the Fourth Industrial Revolution

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“Critical to the success of The Right FITT is business intelligence to drive advanced analytics for predicting and forecasting,” said Senior Manager of Global Manufacturing Strategy, Fernando Torres. “The ability to integrate and synthesize separate data sources into a simple analytics dashboard that can span the entire organization will facilitate decision-making that is proactive rather than reactive while driving technological advances. This is the future of manufacturing,” said Torres.

ew companies can say they have been through all four industrial revolutions.

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Greene Tweed recently reinforced its dedication to continuing the company’s +150year tradition of innovation by launching The Right FITT, which stands for Factory Innovation and Technology Transformation.

The Right FITT is a 5-year manufacturing strategy in-line with “Industry 4.0,” also known as the fourth industrial revolution.

Headquartered in the greater Philadelphia area, Greene Tweed has been in business since 1863 – well before the first industrial revolution. As the company prepares for Industry 4.0, Greene Tweed will stay true to the guiding principles and core values that have built the foundation for their success, including a long-standing commitment to innovation.

Greene Tweed designs, engineers, and manufactures a broad portfolio of elastomeric sealing solutions, advanced engineering thermoplastics, and thermoplastic composites for use in harsh conditions, including extreme temperatures and pressures and corrosive chemical environments. Greene Tweed products include brands such as its Chemraz® FFKM, and Fusion™ FKM elastomeric seals, Arlon® and Avalon® thermoplastics, and WR®, AR® and Xycomp® thermoplastic composites. Greene Tweed partners with equipment manufacturers in the aerospace, energy, semiconductor, industrial, and life science markets.

Greene Tweed 8-18.indd 25

Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Henry Stueber, has a vision that includes implementing the most advanced current manufacturing technology and ensuring comprehensive digital systems integration.

The Right FITT is a 5-year manufacturing strategy that upgrades most of the factory floor with Industry 4.0 technology.

“Our customers know Greene Tweed as a solid and reliable manufacturer of quality parts, but we’re seeing changes in the competitive landscape. We currently offer a full suite of custom-designed sealing solutions and engineering support, but equipment manufacturing is transforming. Our elastomers and plastics need to withstand more extreme temperatures. We needed to refocus, and re-tool our factories for the future,” said Stueber.

The plan includes new equipment and data integration systems and controls, and a three-phase maintenance improvement plan with a goal of zero equipment stoppages.

Design engineers will be able to make product adjustments inline and in real time, and customers will be able to track their orders in real-time. New equipment will include robot and co-bot technology. Data integration will include digital inventory controls and cloud computing by augmenting modules to the current SAP systems at all manufacturing locations, resulting in increased production capability and quality control, and lower production costs.

Greene Tweed has also implemented a Manufacturing Technology Development (MTD) Process that utilizes a Stage Gate Process Improvement Model, which is open to all operations employees from the shop floor upward. Employees submit new technology development ideas that improve manufacturing through cost reduction, throughput, capacity, or product quality. If an idea makes it through the Stage Gate Process, including capital approval, the upgrade is included in the project timeline.

Unlike the assembly line factories of the past that pumped out products according to Henry Ford’s mantra, “any color so long as it is black,” Greene Tweed is planning a factory of the future that will look more like a custom niche shop where operators can control inventory, process, quality, and maintenance from their laptops.

More than 150-year tradition of innovation, and The Right FITT, is how Greene Tweed is successfully planning for Industry 4.0 and the fourth industrial revolution.

The Right FITT is a trademark of Greene, Tweed & Company LLC.

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7/30/18 10:28 AM

Design Notes

Conveyors with backlighting get more electrical outlets out Edited by Mike Santora • Associate Editor

Michigan-based Byrne Electrical Specialists designs and manufactures power and data technologies for office, teaching, and hospitality environments. Recently, the company began using industrial conveyors from QC Conveyors to increase their throughput of electrical outlets.

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A trio of robotic assembly cells — each with its own threesome of busbar conveyors and solo output conveyor — build electrical outlets for modular office furniture. Then one packaging cell at the end of the line collects the output from these assembly-cell feeds for final testing and shipping.

Operators set the parameters for the current job with an HMI based on the specifics of the current order being processed — including parameters such as color, size, needed outlet count per case, and so on.

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Byrne’s automated installation processes busbars in four different line, four different neutral, and three different ground variations … and it handles six different outlet body variations.

That means the whole installation can output several dozen electrical-outlet models — each requiring dedicated visionsystem programming for successful robot picking.

Conveyor backlights on 9 of 28 conveyors from QC Conveyors illuminate items above through a cutout in the conveyor frame and the translucent belt. The lights provide contrast to let a vision system inspect the parts and find good ones; find parts that aren’t stacked; and orient a robot arm servicing the conveyor to pick the parts.

Operators then load the outlets’ front shells and back plates by hand on one side of a machine … and put metal bus bars into hoppers on the other.

“Each electric outlet has five parts — including three busbars for line, neutral, and ground. Each busbar has its own hopper and conveyor-based sorting line to let us take these raw components and basically dump them into hoppers. Then each hopper drops busbars onto a cascading three-layer conveyor system,” explained Byrne engineer Dan Wierenga.

DESIGN WORLD

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The first of the three conveyors moves slowly and drops busbars onto a faster middle conveyor (in a way that spaces them evenly). In the middle of this conveyor is an underlit section — provided by Spectrum Illumination. The underlit conveyor region is monitored by a Datalogic vision system.

As busbars travel over the underlighting, the vision system confirms they’re right-side up and clear of other parts — and then commands the conveyor to stop to allow pickup by a robot. Any busbars that are bad, misoriented, or clumped together continue onward until they fall onto a third (fastestmoving) conveyor that (via an elevator) returns them to the original hopper. Next a Nachi six-axis robot gets the X, Y, and angle of the busbar, grips and reorients it, and puts it in a holding station.

Another robot takes the first of two plastic halves — the outlet’s front shell— and puts it into a nest. Then it picks three busbars (readied by the previous robot) and inserts them into the front shell. Then the robot puts the outlet’s back shell half on the front and presses them together. For there, the robot places the completed assembly on another conveyor (from QC Conveyors) to inspection and packout.

Finished electrical outlets are lifted off the conveyor and inspected visually on both sides. They then pass an inkjet printer that prints a symbol specific to the current order on the front of the outlet. The printer applies logos in three different colors depending on the outlet’s body color. After printing, all the electrical outlets get a label on the back and then go into the proper case for that order.

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Design Notes The system was designed for Byrne Electrical Specialists by Criterion Manufacturing Solutions, where Wierenga worked during the installation design before joining Byrne to keep the line optimized. A local QC Conveyors distributor, Industrial Control based in Zeeland, Mich., worked very closely with engineers at Byrne on the design specifications for the automated installation.

“We used QC Conveyors because Byrne has partnered with Industrial Controls on an array of projects before. Plus, the conveyors have a convenient form factor and come in custom sizes and lengths — and with an array of belt types,” explained Wierenga. “The latter let us use low-friction belts, transparent belts, and highdurability belts to maximize functionality and lifespan. On QC Conveyors, the belts are also easy to install and replace.”

A major challenge was integrating the moving belt and stopping the belts and then coordinating the vision system’s vision space to real-world robot coordinates. Complicating matters is that the lines must do that for several dozen part variations. “That means we had to design a system that lets us program and calibrate the different parts very easily — which took a fair amount of development,” added Wierenga.

Before this automated machinery, parts were assembled by hand. Each assembler had a manual station where he or she would put the outlet parts together and then weld the part closed. Then the outlets went to another station to get printed and UL testing. All secondary audits, labeling, and packaging after that was manual. In contrast, now Byrne takes raw components and does 100% of its testing, 100% of its parts inspection, and 100% of its boxing for shipment with automation. DW Nine busbar hoppers and six outletbody inputs feed three assembly cells.

GC Conveyors | gcconveyors.com

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Design Notes

HMI and PLC combo streamlines modular automation equipment manufacturing

Edited by Mike Santora • Associate Editor

Inovatech Automation is an automation integrator specializing in modular automation equipment, fixtures, and customized product solutions. When the company decided they were losing too much time and money through programming on expensive HMI and PLC platforms, they contacted Pro-Face America.

Inovatech uses Pro-face America’s LT4000M to help create its Modular Automation Station System. The MASS (shown here) is a slide-connect solution for low and high-volume automation within a single enclosure.

DESIGN WORLD

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Travis Buset, Director of Operations for Inovatech, explained that he needed a product that could provide universal robot and I/O link integration. Additionally, he wanted the HMI unit itself to be branded with the Inovatech logo. He also needed a more efficient way to program and downtime wasn’t an option.

“I was apprehensive at first. With so many of the projects I’m on, the timing is short. ‘We need to do it now; it has to get done now.’ So, I had concerns about learning something on the fly only to find out the onboarding experience and programming was now going take me twice as long,” says Buset.

The solution was the LT4000M. Using this HMI plus Control reduced the hardware cost by eliminating the PLC (combining HMI/PLC). This configuration also decreased engineering time by at least 50%. The LT4000M also offered easy integration to a Universal robot and IO link as requested. The Pro-face team also delivered on the custom overlay for the LT4000M, helping Invotech keep its brand intact. Ultimately, time and efficiency were the most significant upgrades with the new system in place.

Buset’s concerns were short-lived.

“The other platform, for example, required two different types of software. Pro-face uses a single software, and it’s basically a drag-and-drop. Something that would’ve taken me 32 to 40 hours to program, now took me eight hours to program on the Pro-face. I had it programmed in eight hours, my first time programming.”

Buset also says that the ROI on the new platform was drastically improved. “This a very, very powerful unit. For the cost, it’s well worth it for what this configuration is capable of.”

Inovatech estimates that it is now operating at as much as 75% greater efficiency than before. DW

Pro-face America | www.profaceamerica.com

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Internet of Things

System lets you configure IoT interfaces through the Web

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This IoT Gateway for the Industry 4.0 market is a system of fully coordinated hardware

and software components for new and existing machines.

The IoT Gateway makes it easy to connect to the Internet of Things (IoT) without intervening in the automation logic. The precisely coordinated combination of control hardware and software for implementing IT applications collects sensor and process data, transmits it to MES, cloud applications or local machine state monitoring systems and enables process data analysis.

The modular software concept is based on Linux, Java apps and open interfaces. The configuration and handling are web-based, free from programming and performed logically in three simple steps.

No software is needed to set up the system; everything is configurable through web interfaces.

Furthermore, users don’t have to learn a programming language to use the system, making it easy to get started. And, scalable, embedded control hardware complements three system apps that make data recording, processing and forwarding easy.

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The Dashboard App The Dashboard App provides web-based interfaces for administration, configuration, parameterization and visualization of process data. Users receive a detailed overview of the collected data and the device’s app enables local monitoring of process data through a standard browser without special software.

The Devices App The Devices App establishes connections with peripherals such as sensors and signal values are converted into process data (known as endpoints). Connection options for this app are analog voltage and current signals, digital voltage signals, OPC UA, Open Core Interface for Controls, Siemens S7, RFID and Bluetooth LE. The Processing App The Processing App converts process data into information using logical and mathematical operations. The app then forwards that information to higher-level systems. DW

Bosch Rexroth www.boschrexroth.com/en/iot-gateway

August 2018 www.designworldonline.com

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Internet of Things

IoT tool controller helps control assembly processes

T

The INSIGHTqc controller helps manufacturers, such as those in heavy equipment and automotive, control of their assembly processes quickly.

The controller powers Ingersoll Rand QE Series and QM Series direct current precision assembly tools (dc tools), and collects data that manufacturers can act on to improve production. The INSIGHTqc controller stores up to 50,000 records of cycle data and 50,000 tightening traces onboard the device –50 times more than the previous Ingersoll Rand model.

The controller is simple to set up and integrate into a manufacturer’s assembly operations, and can be connected to multiple devices. The fastening data is saved on an internal solidstate drive and the controller can be connected to a network to also save the data on a

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plant’s server. Metrics and analytics are protected even if a network connection is dropped and can be studied any time for quality control.

The INSIGHTqc saves training time and installation costs with an intuitive, touch-screen programming interface and ready-to-use protocols. An integrated memory backup and recovery capabilities reduce errors and downtime.

The controller can support up to four plug-and-play accessories or devices, such as a barcode scanner or socket trays, with its four onboard USB ports. Operators can also save time and increase productivity with the integrated DESIGN WORLD

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help system, an interactive icon that opens the corresponding digital pages of the user manual that apply to the active screen on the controller.

The controller’s web-based software is compatible with smart phones, tablets and other Internet-based devices. The controller features easy line integration, integrated logic controls and helps reduce line rebalancing costs. It is also easy to upgrade the controller’s hardware and software to meet any tightening control requirements.

The INSIGHTqc controller improves manufacturing productivity with onboard diagnostics and integrated statistical process controls that are represented visually, so manufacturers can correct fastening errors. The controller is also equipped with preventative maintenance alarms and configurable email alerts.

Manufacturers can select optional plug-and-play accessories. The barcode scanner helps operators troubleshoot quality issues with specific parts, while the socket trays and bit trays aid in errorproofing the assembly process. DW

The Right Gripper for Your Part

Ingersoll Rand irtools.com/insightqc

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- Robotic end effector solutions - Angular & parallel, many sizes and options available - Unique solutions available - For handling various sized parts - Superior design & delivery

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phdinc.com/gripad

P.O. Box 9070 • Fort Wayne, IN 46899 USA

7/31/18 3:46 PM

Internet of Things IoT edge device offers simple path to Industry 4.0

M

Modern smart factory concepts tailored to Industry 4.0 or the Internet of Things (IoT) offer advantages for increasing process efficiency and quality while lowering costs.

The ultra compact C6015 Industrial PC (IPC) is a space-saving, high-performance IoT edge device that fully uses these advantages for new and legacy systems in the process industries.

By integrating comprehensive IoT and analytics functionality, the PC-based control technology opens options to optimize production processes.

System consistency in the control platform ensures simple implementation and high transparency:

Beckhoff Automation | www.beckhoff.com

• A universal portfolio of components for explosion protection, including the ELX series EtherCAT Terminals, enables end-to-end automation of even large and complex processing plants.

• The TwinCAT software platform offers specific interfaces and libraries for process technology, and enables convenient cloud integration via TwinCAT IoT and data analysis with TwinCAT Analytics, synchronizing perfectly with control cycles.

•

A high-performance IoT edge device in the form of the C6015 ultra-compact IPC, which can simultaneously run all kinds of automation and control tasks.

Measuring just 82 x 82 x 40 mm, the compact C6015 IPC with multi-core technology can be flexibly installed in confined spaces. Equipped with an Intel Atom processor that offers up to four CPU cores, the C6015 provides sufficient processing power for simple collection, processing and provision of process data and for the more complex tasks required of a modern IoT gateway.

The Microsoft Azure certification of the C6015 underscores that the device is ideal for state-ofthe-art Industry 4.0 applications.

The C6015 is for such communication tasks, especially when retrofitting and connecting legacy systems. Existing process technology systems can be easily equipped with additional IoT capabilities using this IoT edge device, or they can be readied

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to meet future communication requirements. In this way, operators of process technology systems gain access to the full wealth of IoT and analytics solutions, regardless of the automation technology used. This reduces production costs, optimizes product quality and improves the transparency of all process workflows. In addition, system availability and productivity can be increased and cloud-based services used, for example, to implement predictive maintenance. Beckhoff Automation, www.beckhoff.com DW

Beckhoff Automation www.beckhoff.com

August 2018 www.designworldonline.com

Internet of Things_8-18_Vs3.LL.indd 34

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POWER TRANSMISSION

RETAINING DEVICES & maintenance & assembly tools

Small, really small, Ethernet switch

T

The UL certified EKI-2525LI, is an 8-cm tall Ethernet switch

BEARLOK

SHOELOK

BEARLOK Shrink Disc

BEARHUG

CLAMPNUT

TANGENTLOK

for applications where space is a critical criteria. The ultra compact C6015 Industrial PC (IPC) is a space-saving, high-performance IoT edge device that fully uses these advantages for new and legacy systems in the process industries.

Compact devices such as PLCs typically have a height of only 10 cm. Conventional Ethernet switches are usually taller than this, resulting in a waste of space. The EKI-2525LI overcomes this and can easily fit into a rack-mount cabinet to maximize space utilization, thus providing an easy and immediate upgrade for Industrial IoT applications.

The switch can also be fitted into any already wired electronic box or shelve where extra connectivity and communication service are required but space is limited, thus aiding businesses with key infrastructure upgrades.

Moreover, the EKI-2525LI can serve as an embedded device in any working equipment, such as kiosk, AGV, and CNC machines, thus ensuring smooth data transmission between embedded devices and thereby promoting seamless information communication.

The EKI-2525LI supports a temperature range of -40° ~ 75°C, 12 ~ 48 Vdc power terminal input plus one dc power jack and P-Fail relay, supports 10/1000 Mbps auto-negotiation, and provides five fast Ethernet ports with auto MDI/MDI-X. DW

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Materials of: CARBON, ALLOY and HARDENED ALLOY STEELS Materials of: ALLUMINUM and CORROSION RESISTANT STEEL NUTS & WASHERS

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RETHREADING DIES

ADJUSTABLE SPANNER WRENCH

BEARING ASSEMBLY SOCKET

Advantech | www.advantech.com

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Visit our website–whittet-higgins.com–to peruse the many possibilities to improve your assemblies. Much technical detail delineated as well as 2D and 3D CAD models for engineering assistance. Call your local

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33 Higginson Avenue, Central Falls, Rhode Island 02863 Telephone: (401) 728-0700 • FAX: (401) 728-0703 E-mail: info@whittet-higgins.com Web: www.whittet-higgins.com

7/27/18 1:16 PM

kelleramerica.com

oem pressure transmitters

With 50kHz dynamic response time at up to 200°C and pressure ranges up to 30 bar in a miniature Ă˜6.2 mm housing, Keller’s M5 pressure transducer is an ideal solution for static and dynamic pressure monitoring applications where size and performance are critical. For more information, contact Keller America toll-free 877-253-5537 or email sales@kelleramerica.com.

Keller 8-18.indd 36

7/30/18 10:29 AM

Internet of Things

Multi-wireless Bluetooth connectivity

T

The Bluetooth 5 series helps improve performance

with up to four times the range and twice the data throughput for industrial, medical, and Internet of Things (IoT) applications.

The BL654 Series builds upon BL600 and BL652 series, reducing engineering burden and design risk, and speeding time-tomarket when integrating Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), as well as Thread (802.15.4) and NFC capabilities into an OEM design.

In addition, Bluetooth 5 features enhanced data rates and LE Long Range. It integrates BLE Mesh capabilities in a high TX power platform for low power, long-range mesh sensor networks.

Based on Nordic Semiconductor nRF52840 silicon, the BL654 ultra-small modules, development kits, and USB-packaged adapter provide a secure, robust, multi-wireless plus CortexM4F MCU platform for any product design. The BL654 delivers development flexibility with programming options for the Nordic SDK in C; a simple, intuitive AT Command Set, as well as the smartBASIC event-driven programming environment.

The smartBASIC event driven programming language makes integration easier for designers, especially those who may be new to Bluetooth wireless technology. The programming language offers built-in functions that replace thousands of lines of C code.

It also acts as a bridge between software and hardware, allowing an application to work on any smartBASIC radio.

The BL654 is for the IoT where many companies may not have any background in RF design or BLE wireless technology.

It enables users to access the latest market-leading wireless technology without the steep learning curve, design risk, and time that it will typically involve.

The BL654 family also offers robust security, industrial temperature rating, a tiny footprint -- as small as 15 x 10 mm -- and modular FCC, IC, CE, MIC, RCM and Bluetooth SIG approvals, which extend to an OEM’s design with no new testing for the fastest route to production. DW

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Connector Notes

Breakthrough connectors make wearable tech easy

F

Fischer Connectors continues to push the boundaries of technological

innovation in rugged miniaturization, high-speed data transmission, sealing, and wearability. It now offers plug and use connectivity with its new product line: the Fischer Freedom series and its first product, the Fischer LP360.

Fischer Connector’s Freedom Series LP360

The Fischer Freedom series meets design engineers’ urgent needs for designing

and connecting portable and body-worn applications quickly and easily, thanks to three breakthrough technology innovations:

• Mating – no key code allows for 360° mating “freedom” • Locking – ball-locking mechanism with sealing and variable pre-defined force (patent pending)

• Materials – specially designed pins on the plug are IP68 sealed with a membrane (patent pending) Thanks to these innovations, the Fischer Freedom series facilitates integration, maximizes usability and optimizes cable management for a wide variety of applications within markets such as defense, security, medical, industrial, and civil engineering.

The new product line makes end users’ lives easier by reducing cognitive,

weight and reliability burdens thanks to:

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Fischer Connector’s Freedom series provides optimized cable management.

Easy mating. Mating the Fischer LP360

panel-mounted plug interface, cables

can be eliminated completely when

becomes as intuitive as buttoning up

can even be removed completely, and the

the plug is integrated directly into the

a vest – without compromising on the

connector can be directly integrated into

housing of devices such as a camera, a

high-performance reliability required in

the housing of such devices as a camera,

sensor, a light, or a GPS. It offers, in that

harsh environments.

a sensor, a light, and a GPS.

sense, the ‘wireless (cable-free) without

the hassle of the wireless’ and thus

Easy cleaning. The new connector is

As the Fischer LP360 has no key

code, it offers 360° mating “freedom,”

paves the way for further expansion into

fully cleanable (both plug and receptacle),

meaning it can be plugged and routed

breakthrough connectivity solutions for

and is easy to use and maintain with a

in any direction, ensuring that the cable

the Internet of Things (IoT).

faster set up and improved durability.

can always go straight to the device. No

The Fischer Freedom series is ideal for a

more twists and turns means shorter

integrability of the Fischer Freedom

wide variety of portable and body-worn

cables in the body-worn equipment

series connectivity solutions contribute

applications within markets such as

by dismounted soldiers, healthcare

to making wearable devices smaller,

defense, security, medical, industrial and

professionals or patients, civil engineers,

faster and smarter — and, ultimately, to

civil engineering.

surveyors and operators, and law

making high-performance and smart

enforcement officers and security guards.

clothing a reality.

Easy integration. Thanks to its compact

In certain applications, the need for

The usability as well as the

The series allows design engineers

and low-profile design, the Fischer

cable can be eliminated completely.

to build an intelligent vest which works

LP360 is easy to integrate into clothing

According to Wim Vanheertum,

as a hub with multiple portable and

with devices and subsystems; via the

Director of Product Management, “In

body-worn devices connected to a

certain applications, the need for cable

shared data and power bus. Clutter is reduced and usability increased, making equipment lighter and faster to set up.

Key specs of the Fischer LP360 • Signal and power through 7 contacts, up to 24 AWG compatible with up to 3x 5A power and 4x 1A signal with USB 2.0 and Ethernet data

These benefits also open up further opportunities in the IoT. DW

Fischer Connectors | fischerconnectors.com

protocols • Receptacle: Panel mount with O-ring sealing, or integration as a wearable solution • Plug: Easy cabling (up to 24 AWG), with or without potting – bend relief or overmolding – panel plug version for direct integration into the housing of an application

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

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• High-performance reliability • Robust stainless steel and brass design for longevity (min. 10,000 mating cycles)

other engineering design issues with thousands of professionals online

• Resistant to shock, vibration, torque and extreme temperatures • Tested in line with MIL and IEC standards

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Connector Notes

Intelligent cable secures

data and energy flow

The LEONiQ technology can record and evaluate such differing parameters as temperature and mechanical wear along almost any given cable system.

Leoni has developed an intelligent cable technology that makes energy and data flows more efficient, secure and available. “LEONiQ� can record and evaluate such differing parameters as temperature and mechanical wear along almost any given cable system. This key technology allows users to make conclusions concerning the condition of the overall cable system as well as controlling and monitoring it.

LEONiQ comprises three main elements:

1 Simulation for energy and data transmission: As early as the

initial development phase, LEONiQ uses digital functional

simulation of cable solutions to design them best for the

respective application.

2 Sensor-integrated, intelligent connectivity solutions: The

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technology enables a new kind of monitoring function to be

integrated into system-critical applications with sensor and

electronic elements along the cable system. It continuously

reads such different parameters as temperature, impermeability,

mechanical stress and GPS position.

August 2018 www.designworldonline.com

Connector Notes 8-18_Vs5.LL MG.indd 40

DESIGN WORLD

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3 Data analysis and smart services:

instance, based on sensor data from the

Algorithms in the cloud analyze

charging station and the vehicle battery

the data, which the user can view on

combined with the cable’s temperature,

a dashboard; if need be, almost in

every charge can thus be run at the

real time. This process allows for

maximum possible power at all times.

a range of data-based smart services

The vehicle is consequently more safely

including early warning systems,

and quickly charged, and a fault is

active system control and pinpoints

thoroughly identified before it becomes

recommendations for action.

an actual problem — benefiting the user

The recorded data is fed into the

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and the charging station operator. DW functional simulation models. Thanks to

Leoni AG | leoni.com

this control loop, Leoni is able to steadily optimize all intelligent cable solutions in what is a kind of learning system.

This Leoni-developed technology

combines the advantages of other, sometimes very costly measuring methods inside a very small space while simultaneously providing access via the cloud at any time: LEONiQ is about 100 times cheaper and 100 times smaller than comparable technologies and makes the use of intelligence in cables economically feasible for the first time.

That gives the user considerable added value, which is based on the cable system’s true usage data as well as its evaluation and interpretation. This, in turn, facilitates such applications as predictive maintenance, pay-per-use models and overall system monitoring and control.

Application example: Charging electric cars is becoming safer and more efficient because Leoni can add intelligence to

The infrastructure for charging electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles is one example for use of the LEONiQ key technology. Here it can contribute to monitoring and optimising high-voltage charging cycles. For instance, based on sensor data from the charging station and the vehicle battery combined with the cable’s temperature, the charge can thus be run at the maximum possible power at all times.

virtually any cable. The infrastructure for charging electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles is one example for use of the LEONiQ key technology. Here it can contribute to monitoring and optimizing high-voltage charging cycles. For

DESIGN WORLD

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August 2018

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7/27/18 12:56 PM

CAE Solutions

SIMSOLID large model design studies (courtesy of Serapid)

SIMSOLID Cloud

S

Bruce Jenkins • Ora Research

SIMSOLID, first rolled out in 2015, is a structural modeling and analysis software application that radically democratizes FEA by working directly on imported CAD geometry with no need for the two most time- and laborintensive aspects of traditional structural analysis tools: CAD geometry simplification, or de-featuring, and finiteelement mesh generation.

In February, SIMSOLID Corporation announced the general availability of SIMSOLID Cloud. SIMSOLID’s positioning of the product is that it “continues to set the standard for rapid simulation-driven design.

Its innovative core technology eliminates geometry simplification and meshing, the two most time-consuming and expertise-extensive tasks done in traditional FEA. Moreover, SIMSOLID can analyze complex parts and large assemblies not practical with traditional FEA and provides performance feedback in seconds to minutes.” Our firsthand research among early adopters firmly confirms those claims.

SIMSOLID Cloud is an all new browser-based structural analysis application. Available in the Onshape App Store, it uses Onshape’s single sign-on and runs completely within an Onshape Document tab. With SIMSOLID Cloud, you

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never have to leave the familiar Onshape environment. All modeling, analysis and results visualization are completely embedded.

SIMSOLID Cloud offers structural static and modal vibration analyses. It comes with an integrated material properties library. Both individual parts and assemblies can be analyzed and parts can be either mesh or CAD solids based.

SIMSOLID Cloud comes with unique design study capabilities. Design studies are used to collect and quantify design performance variation. Each SIMSOLID project can contain multiple design studies and each study can contain multiple analyses. Best of all, SIMSOLID design studies are associative to Onshape geometry updates. As the geometry evolves, the study can be updated without having to recreate the existing analysis configuration settings.

“We are pleased to announce SIMSOLID Cloud,” said Ken Welch, co-founder and CEO. “Onshape is an ideal cloud partner for us. We are excited to get going.”

“SIMSOLID is an innovative partner,” said Jon Hirschtick, Onshape CEO. “Their meshless FEA approach is truly changing the way design analysis is performed. I think it is fantastic that Onshape users no longer have to simplify geometry before running analysis.”

August 2018 www.designworldonline.com

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Introducing SIMSOLID, a different kind of FEA SIMSOLID, an Onshape Partner, does not have the meshing limitations found in traditional FEA. It is based on new FEA technology that does not use a mesh, but instead applies classes of higher order functions on both a part and a CAD feature basis. SIMSOLID is an adaptive solver that automatically iterates to improve accuracy on both a local and global basis.

Best of all, SIMSOLID algorithms are designed specifically to handle large assemblies with complex connections. Assemblies that are not possible to solve with traditional FEA can be quickly analyzed in SIMSOLID. Simulation is typically used: During the design process – to provide rapid design insight during product idealization and creation. After the design is complete – to validate that the design specifications were met or not. After the product ships – to diagnose product failures.

While structural simulation can be used in all phases of the product lifecycle, its largest benefit is obtained when used early in the design process before any hard manufacturing costs are committed. This is the ideal time to use SIMSOLID, which operates directly on Onshape CAD geometry without simplification. No meshing means that model setup is extremely fast and results are now obtained in seconds to minutes.

Robust, industrial-grade analysis software SIMSOLID is new technology, but it has been extensively tested and proven on real-world applications. It’s extremely easy to use, fast and accurate – and it can handle both large assemblies and complex, lattice-based, 3D-printed parts.

An Onshape model of a real-world, complex machined plate with 1200+ faces and 100+ small holes. It’s not practical to solve this with conventional FEA.

DURABILITY Longer lifecycles, extended maintenance intervals and

DW

Onshape | Onshape.com

fewer complaints Casters, wheels and mobility solutions for industrial applications, machinery, carts, automotive industry, trunks cases, conveyors, heavy duty equipment and more.

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www.tente.com Mobility@tente-us.com

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August 2018

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CAE Solutions Fully Integrated Display

MBSE helps create multi-domain digital twin

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Siemens PLM Software model-based systems engineering (MBSE) extensions enable Multi-Domain Engineering as a key component of the Systems Driven Product Development strategy. MBSE technology includes Teamcenter software, Simcenter software, Capital software, NX software, and Polarion software. The platform will also be based on open standards and the open source software enabling these technologies to integrate with the digital twin.

In a partnership agreement with Obeo, a software provider of customizable modeling solutions, the Multi-Domain Engineering platform will offer highly flexible modeling solutions, engineering methodologies and industry-specific process templates. These offerings allow customers the flexibility to either use standard modeling languages, such as System Modeling Language (SysML) or Capella, or to apply their own process methodology. Providing cross-discipline integration across the product architecture helps connect the digital twin in a unique way, creating a multi-domain digital twin by enabling systems engineering across the entire product lifecycle.

Through the Systems Driven Product Development solutions, Siemens offers the next-generation capability to provide a clear step beyond existing point-to-point software integrations. The combined solution, underpinned by the collaboration platform Active Workspace for Teamcenter, can be used to optimize designs for cost, performance and in-service maintenance, and to deliver continuous validation against requirements. The user experience is augmented by co-design aids such as cross visualization and automatic object reconciliation between NX, Simcenter and Capital, our integrated electric and electronic design and validation platform. The true integration of MBSE with the entire product lifecycle through Teamcenter helps enable a more efficient product journey from conceptualization to realization, to help customers realize innovation.

Integrated with Teamcenter, the combination of NX CAD, Simcenter for mechatronic systems simulation, and Polarion for embedded software development enables systems engineering across all major engineering domains. Such systems engineering workflows were recently extended into the domains of electrical and electronic engineering, with the applications of Mentor Graphics. The partnership with Obeo will help provide a seamless integration between Siemens’ MBSE solution and industry standards. The solution will deliver comprehensive requirements, including functional, logical, physical and flow, giving customers the richest and deepest set of capabilities for MBSE to uniquely address and simplify the development of complex products. DW Siemens PLM Software | www.plm.automation.siemens.com

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PDF generator exports data to HTML5

P

Jean Thilmany • Senior Editor

Prostep AG of Darmstadt, Germany has added new functions to its PDF Generator 3D software to enables 3D PDF documents to be created automatically and to be published on the web. The company makes product lifecycle management software for publishing 2D and 3D content.

Version 8 now allows both the export of 3D data to HTML5 and the automatic generation of bills of material with 2D views of 3D components. This makes for flexibility when the software is used as a service content generator or as a means to drive implementation of drawing-free processes forward with the help of technical data packages.

The upgrade also offers functions for publishing 3D data together with metadata in the web. The 3D content of the HTML pages can be visualized in nearly all currently available browsers, both on desktop computers and on mobile devices running iOS or Android.

Responsive design means that the pages are displayed differently depending on the end device being used.

Like 3D PDF templates, corresponding HTML5 templates can be stored and used to create the web pages. They allow the pages to be displayed in line with customer specifications regarding layout and corporate identity. The standard configuration includes a template that customers can use immediately.

Another new feature is the automatic generation of BOMs with 2D views of the 3D components. This allows customers to integrate 3D representations in their 3D PDFs as well as 2D views derived from assemblies and individual parts. Derivation takes place during conversion in conjunction with the PDF Generator 3D technical data package module, which also, for example, creates the BOM tables for spare parts catalogs.

The upgrade includes all functions needed to generate technical data packages as required for establishing drawing-free processes in accordance with the VDA guideline 4953-2 and the US military standard MIL-STD-31000. Not only can it be used to embed 3D representations and STEP AP 242 metadata in PDF/A-3-compliant containers but also to derive static 2D views from dynamic 3D PDF models.

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Generator 3D software lets designers create 3D PDF documents an publish them on the web.

In addition to supporting the current formats of all leading CAD systems, the upgrade also provides support for the 3D formats DWG and DXF for the first time. The native processing of the widely used AutoCAD formats not only makes it easier to provide HTML5 and 3D PDF content for architecture and building information management but also for service documentation, says Timo Trautmann, a Prostep senior consultant.

Integration facilities to virtually all leading ERP and PDM/PLM systems and direct access to more than 20 different CAD formats allow the creation of catalogs to be automated to an extremely high degree, thus saving a substantial amount of time and money. This is of particular benefit to companies that produce spare parts catalogs for products configured according to customer specifications–regardless of whether these are small machines or large systems, Trautmann says.

“The provision of the respective current spare parts catalogs, manuals and other documents in digital form is a prerequisite for developing new service offerings and service-based business models,” he adds. DW

Prostep AG | www.prostep.com www.designworldonline.com

August 2018

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7/27/18 1:28 PM

Inside: Q&A: Universal Robots co-founder Esben Ă˜stergaard

•

Robots get a grip at Automatica

www.designworldonline.com

14

A Supplement to Design World - August 2018

Fabulous new robots at Automatica. page 60

Robotics Cover_8-18_Vs1.indd 46

7/27/18 1:57 PM

Integrated Automation, Motion & Drives USA at HANNOVER MESSE USA See the latest technologies and solutions driving the factory of the future.

September 10–15, 2018 McCormick Place, Chicago, IL hannovermesseusa.com

CO-LOCATED WITH

how Free s ion dmiss a r o o fl ode with c

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HANNOVER MESSE 6-18.indd 47

7/30/18 10:30 AM

The Robot Report

By Frank Tobe • Founder of The Robot Report

Takeaways from Automatica

A

Automatica 2018 is one of Europe’s largest robotics and automation

trade shows and a destination for global roboticists and business executives to view new products. It was held June 19-22 in Munich and had 890 exhibitors and 46,000 visitors, both up 7% from the previous show.

I was at Automatica from start to finish, seeing all aspects of the show,

attending a few ISR keynotes, and had interviews and talks with some very informative industry executives. Here are some of my takeaways.

The Awards go to ...

The Joseph Engelberger Award was given to International Federation of Robotics’ (IFR) General Secretary Gudrun Litzenberger and to Universal Robots CTO and co-founder Esben Østergaard (see our Q&A with Østergaard on page XX).

The IFR Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Robotics and Automation (IERA) Award went to three recipients for their unique robots: Lely Holding, the Dutch manufacturer of milking robots, for its Discovery 120 Manure Collector; KUKA Robotics, for its new LBR Med, a lightweight robot certified for integration into medical products; and Perception Robotics for its Gecko Gripper that uses a grasping technology from biomimicry observed in geckos.

Strong Industrial Robot Growth In addition to the CEO roundtable discussion, IFR President Junji Tsuda previewed the statistics that will appear in this year’s IFR Industrial Robots Annual Report covering 2017 sales data. He reported that 2017 turnover was about $50 billion, that 381,000 robots were sold, a 29% increase over 2016, and that China, which deployed 138,000 robots, was the main driver of 2017’s growth with a 58% increase over 2016 (the US rose only 6% by comparison).

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A FANUC industrial robot lifts a BMW SUV high into the air at Automatica 2018. | Credit: Thomas Plettenberg/Messe München GmbH

Tsuda attributed the drivers for the 2017 results - and a 15% CAGR forecast for the next few years (25% for service robots) - to be the growing simplification (ease of use) for training robots; collaborative robots; progress in overall digitalization; and AI enabling greater vision and perception.

CEOs Weigh in During the IFR CEO Roundtable, panelists were asked about their thoughts on where the industry would be five years from now. KUKA Industries Germany Stefan Lampa said we would see a big move toward mobile manipulators doing multiple tasks. Per Vegard Nerseth, ABB senior group vice president, said programming robots would become as easy and intuitive as iPhones.

Dr. Kiyonori Inaba, director executive managing officer, GM, Fanuc, said future mobile robots wouldn’t have to wait for work

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The Robot Report

Automatica 2018 drew a record 46,000 attendees. | Credit: Thomas Plettenberg/Messe München GmbH

as current robots often do because they would become more flexible. Markus Kueckelhaus, DHL’s VP of innovations and trend research, forecast that perception would have access to more physics and reality than today. And Professor Dr. Bruno Siciliano, director of ICAROS and coordinator of the PRISMA Lab at the University of Naples Federico II said the tide has turned and more STEM kids are coming into the realm of automation and robotics.

In relation to jobs, all panelists members said the next 30 years would see dramatic changes in new jobs not yet defined as present labor retires and skilled labor shortages force governments to invest in retraining.

The panelists also said artificial intelligence would have major impacts on the following areas: • In logistics, particularly in the combined activities of mobility and grasping • In the increased use of sensors which enable new efficiencies particularly in QC and anomaly detection • In clean room improvements • And in in-line improvements, eg, spray painting

Cobots Everywhere Cobots were touted throughout Automatica.

Universal Robots (UR), the originator of the cobot, had a mammoth booth that was always jammed with visitors as the Danish manufacturer introduced its new e-Series. There were many other cobots present that were very stylish, but none of them had the mechanical prowess of UR. In fact, UR robots were used in many non-UR booths throughout Automatica, thereby indicating UR’s acceptance within the industry.

ABB and Kawasaki announced a common interface for each of their two-armed cobots. They hope other companies will join the cause and that the group would soon add single-arm robots to the software, emphasizing the problem in training robots where each has their own proprietary training method.

Quick Hitters • Bin-picking, which had as much presence and hype 10 years ago as cobots had five years ago and IoT and AI had this year, is blasé now.

The technology has finally become widely deployed and almost matches the original hype.

• AI and the Internet-of-Things were buzzwords and vendors that offered platforms to stream,

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store, handle, combine, process, analyze and make predictions were plentiful.

• Better programming solutions for cobots and even industrial robots are appearing, but they still have a ways to go.

• 24/7 robot monitoring is gaining favor, but access to company systems and equipment is still mostly withheld for security reasons.

• Many special-purpose exoskeletons were shown to help improve factory workers do their jobs.

• The Danish robotics cluster is every bit as successful as clusters in Boston, Pittsburgh, and Silicon Valley.

• Vision and distancing systems, plus standards for same, are enabling cheaper automation.

• Hype about digitalization, data and AI, IoT, and machine (deep) learning was everywhere.

Transforming end-of-arm devices Dr. Michael Zürn, an exec from Daimler AG gave a talk about Mercedes Benz’s use of robotics. He said the company has 50 robots and at least 500 different grippers.

Yet humans with two hands could do every one of those tasks, albeit with superhuman strength in some cases.

He welcomed the years of testing of ABB’s two-armed YuMi robots because they’re the closest to what they need, despite being nowhere near what a twohanded person can do.

Enrico Krog Iversen was the CEO of Universal Robots from 2008-2016 when it sold to Teradyne. Since then he has invested in and cultivated three companies (OnRobot, Perception Robotics and OptoForce) that he merged together to become OnRobot A/S. Iversen is the CEO of the new entity.

With this foundation of sensors, a growing business in grippers and integrating UR and Mobile Industrial Robots [MiR] systems, and a promise to acquire a vision and perception component, Iversen foresees building an entity where everything that goes on a robot can be acquired from his company - and it will have a single

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intuitive user interface. This latter aspect, a single intuitive interface for all, is a very convenient feature that users request but can’t often find.

Martin Hägele, head of the Robotics and Assistive Systems Department at Fraunhofer IPA in Stuttgart, advocated that there is a transformation coming where end-of-arm devices will increasingly include advanced sensing, more actuation, and user interaction.

It seems logical. The end of the robot arm is where all the action is -- the sensors, cameras, handling devices and the item to be processed. Times have changed from when robots were blind and being fed by expensive positioning systems.

“We are convinced that industrial gripping will change radically in the coming years,” said Schunk CEO Henrik Schunk. “Smart grippers will interact with the user and their environment. They will continuously capture and process data and independently develop the gripping strategy in complex and changing environments and do so faster and more flexibly than man ever could.”

KUKA Humanoid Concept KUKA, in a booth far away from its main booth (where it was demonstrating industrial, mobile and collaborative robotics products), was showing a 5-foot-tall humanoid robot concept with a big screen and stylish 18-inch silver cone behind the screen. It looked like an airport or store guide. When I asked what it did, I was told that it was the woofer for the sound system and the robot didn’t do anything. It is one of many concept devices Kuka is reviewing.

Nevertheless, KUKA had a brochure that didn’t show or even refer to any of the concept robots it showed at Automatica. Instead it was all hype about what it might do sometime in the future: purify air, be a gaming console, have an “underhead projector”, HiFi speaker, camera, coffee and wellness head and “provide robotic intelligence that will enrich our daily lives.” RR

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The Robot Report Dan Kara • VP, Robotics in Business Development

Bioservo Technologies’ Ironhand

Industrial Exoskeletons Arrive, More to Come Exoskeleton systems designed for industrial work are now available, and more are coming. The reasons are obvious. The business benefits in terms of increased productivity, reduced worker injuries, and more, are simply too many, and too large, to ignore.

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“Exoskeletons” are those mechanical devices or soft materials worn by patients/operators, whose construction mirrors the structure of operator’s limbs, joints, and muscles, works in tandem with them, and is utilized as a capabilities amplifier, assistive device, haptic controller, or for rehabilitation. Exoskeletons stand in contrast to non-articulated mechanisms such as braces and slings that do not work complimentarily with human operators.

Many early exoskeleton systems were designed for military applications, with defense departments, primarily in the US, funding research and development initiatives. Commercialization efforts followed, led by exoskeletons designed for medical rehabilitation (often for wounded veterans), or as mobility aids allowing paraplegics to stand upright, walk and climb stairs (quality-of-life exos).

Exoskeletons designed for performing manual labor tasks in industrial environments are now commercially available. More importantly, exo research is ongoing and more industrial products are coming. It is easy to see why. Many industrial processes are too complex to automate with existing technology. At the same time, some of this same work is too physically demanding or risky to be accomplished by humans. Exoskeleton technology can act as a bridging solution

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The Robot Report

industrial use includes suitX’s MAX Exoskeleton Suite, Ekso Bionics’ Work Vest, StrongArm Technologies’ FLx ErgoSkeleton, Laevo’s Laevo and Lockheed Martin’s Fortis.

Rigid and Soft

Esko Bionics’ Work Vest between the extremes of fully manual, non-technology enabled tasks, to those operations that demand traditional industrial robots. Exoskeletons exploit the intelligence of human operators and the strength, precision and endurance of industrial robots.

The business benefits of commercial/ industrial exoskeletons are obvious and easily quantified. They include increased productivity, with a concomitant reduction in the number of worker related injuries, as well as decreased need for expensive, “full on” robotic solutions.

Nascent Market Currently, industrial exoskeletons are primarily being used (or under evaluation) in support manufacturing and logistics work. While market for wearable, humanguided, industrial exoskeletons is still in its nascency, the opportunity for solution providers is very large. For example, ABI Research (Oyster Bay, New York) finds that the total addressable market (TAM) for commercial/industrial exoskeletons currently exceeds 2.6 million units, with those featuring technologies that support standing and squatting, the most common type. Many developers of military and healthcare exoskeleton technologies have now added industrial systems to their product lines.

First Generation Systems The first generation of military and rehabilitation exos shared many features.

Both types were composed of ridged,

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often heavy, structural elements including belts, actuators, struts, clips and more.

When used, the devices often interfered with the body’s natural movements, decreasing efficiency and run times, and forcing the wearer to expend a great deal of energy to compensate. That is, the use of the exoskeletons produced results that are the opposite of the purported benefits of the technology – power and endurance augmentation.

The early military and rehabilitation exoskeletons were also powered using battery packs. Unfortunately, the portable power technology of the time was often too power limited and heavy to for extended work.

Powered and Unpowered The new generation of commercial/ industrial exos, some still under development, have benefitted from more efficient battery solutions, while some have resorted non-traditional power solutions such as compressed air.

Examples of commercial class powered exoskeletons include Innophys’ Muscle Suit, Activelink’s Powerloader Ninja, Cyberdyne’s HAL for Labor Support RB3D’s HERCULE, Esko Bionics’ Esko Vest, Sarcos Robotics’ Guardian XO and Noonee’s Chairless Chair.

In contrast to powered exoskeletons, unpowered or ‘passive’ exos increase strength and provide stability through a combination of human guided flexion/ extension and locking mechanisms.

Unpowered exos for commercial and

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Rigid exos can produce musculoskeletal stress and fatigue due to their weight, as well as the unnatural or constrained movement of the suit. As a result, a number of companies are developing new types of soft exoskeletons made of soft, lightweight, compliant materials. The systems themselves are powered with soft muscle actuators or compressed air, or use flexion/extension mechanisms. Bioservo Technologies’ Ironhand and Daiya Industry’s Power Assist Glove serve as examples. In a manner to first generation exoskeleton systems, groups developing soft exo systems for military, and even consumer applications, such as Harvard University and SuperFlex, respectively, are sure to target the industrial sector at some point.

More to Come Supported by advances in materials, battery and actuator technologies, new exoskeleton systems designed for industrial work will continue to come to market. The role for these exo systems will also expand, and the number of industries employing exoskeleton technologies will also increase (think construction, agriculture and more). The reasons are obvious. The business benefits in terms of increased productivity, reduced worker injuries, and more, are simply too many, and too large, to ignore. RR

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The Robot Report

The Sad Demise of

Jibo

Steve Crowe • Editor, The Robot Report

S

Social robot company Jibo is sadly running on fumes after burning through nearly $73 million in venture capital funding. After a round of layoffs in December 2017, Jibo laid off the majority of its workforce in early June to enable “additional time to secure additional funding or pursue an exit.” At press time, there were five employees left at Jibo trying to sell off the remaining assets.

Once billed as the “first social robot for the home,” Jibo’s story is a classic case of over-promising and underdelivering. But we all saw this coming. After multiple shipping delays, the emergence of cheaper, more skilled smart speakers, cancelling international orders and the Chinese copycats and knockoffs, Jibo was doomed. And in the end it simply didn’t deliver the engaging social robot from the marketing video that captivated Indiegogo backers to the tune of nearly $4 million in September 2014.

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The Robot Report

It’s also an unfortunate reminder that most of the innovation in robotics is taking place outside the consumer market. Other than a few robot vacuum companies, mainly iRobot, no company has developed a successful home robot.

The list of companies that have tried is impressive, too, including the likes of Honda, Samsung, SoftBank, Sony and Toyota, all of which have tremendous financial and engineering resources.

Even iRobot’s success is limited when compared to a consumer device like the iPhone, which sold 40.6 million units alone in the first quarter of 2018.

Jibo was plagued by its lack of business expertise and inability to foresee the emergence of the smart speaker market. Jibo repeatedly rejected comparisons to Amazon Echo and Google Home because of the social robot’s enhanced motion and personality. But from a practical standpoint, there’s really no difference.

Amazon Echo was introduced soon after Jibo’s crowdfunding campaign.

And the more capable Echo was priced seventy-five percent less than Jibo. Almost simultaneously, Amazon announced The Alexa Fund, a $100 million investment vehicle to fuel voice technology innovation for developers, device-makers, and companies.

Instead of pivoting in 2015 to meet the new demands of the changing landscape, Jibo’s Indiegogo commitments became

Jibo was plagued by its lack of business expertise and inability to foresee the emergence of the smart speaker market. a curse that loomed over the company.

Jibo eventually shipped for close to $900 and was merchandised next to a series of more skilled products priced significantly lower. That’s a killer.

Jibo also needed to rely heavily on third-party app developers to expand its skills library to have an outside chance at being as functional as the aforementioned smart speakers. This is something Amazon and Google, and other tech giants, excel at. But Jibo struggled in this department, too, delaying the SDK multiple times and ultimately leaving third-party app developers in the dark.

It’s unclear exactly what percentage, but a chunk of Jibo’s cost is tied up in its three-axis motor system that allows it to spin 360 degrees. Before the layoffs, a former Jibo employee told The Robot Report that Jibo was exploring the idea of downgrading the motor system.

To compensate for its non-human appearance, Jibo over-engineered the robot’s motion to make it seem more

human. The thought was that lessening the motor system might not have a major impact on Jibo’s performance while significantly cutting costs. Again, this cost-benefit analysis should have been done years ago, not as the company is shuttering its doors. Cutting production costs doesn’t matter now.

With all that said, social robots aren’t dead. The market for social robotics is forecasted to expand to more than half a billion dollars by 2023, driven largely by the growing demands of the aging-inplace market. Unfortunately, Jibo wasn’t able to deliver tangible benefits or a great experience to customers at an affordable price.

But most companies building robots for the home have suffered the same fate.

Jibo won’t be the product that sparks the social robotics movement, but Intuition Robotics, Mayfield Robotics, Norby and many others hope they’ll be the ones to do so. Will they be successful or suffer the same fate as Jibo? Only time will tell.

While Jibo languishes, the future of robotics will be written by innovators carving out their own market niche against the backdrop of a very competitive economy. Survival will no longer depend on just money, but creativity. It’s why going to Automatica 2018 and seeing hundreds of robots that provide such clear value was refreshing.

RR

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The Robot Report

14 Fabulous New Robots at Automatica

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Automatica 2018 has come and gone.

The leading conference about smart automation and robotics attracted 46,000 attendees and 890 exhibitors in Munich, both increases of seven percent over the 2016 event.

The next Automatica will take place June 1619, 2020 in Munich, and we can’t wait to head back and see the innovations that continue to propel the industry forward.

We scoured Automatica and also shared our main takeaways from the event (see pages 4850), including the enormous presence of cobots, improved programming methods, and the wide deployment of bin-picking applications, and the newest grippers (see page xx).

Let’s take a look at the robots that left a lasting first impression. This isn’t an exhaustive list, of course, as there were nearly 900 exhibitors at Automatica. But here are 14 fabulous new robots we saw at Automatica 2018.

Universal Robots e-Series Cobots

By Steve Crowe • Editor

Comau MATE exoskeleton | Comau MATE

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Collaborative robots pioneer Universal Robots (UR) unveiled its e-Series 6-axis cobot arms.

The UR3e, UR5e, and UR10e offer more precision and sensitivity, enabling a wider range of applications, faster set-up times and new safety features. The cobots started shipping to customers on August 1. The older cobot arms will still be sold.

The e-Series doesn’t look much different on the outside from UR’s older models. But it’s what’s inside the UR3e (3kg payload, 500mm reach), UR5e (5kg payload, 850mm reach) and UR10e (10kg payload, 1300mm reach) that counts. Here’s a quick breakdown of the major new benefits of the e-Series: • A built-in force torque sensor at the wrist • A 500Hz bus frequency • A larger and higher resolution teach pendant • New software interface • 17 safety features, including the ability to program stopping time and stopping distance With the built-in FT sensor, UR said its range of applications has broadened significantly, especially to applications that require more sensitivity. The UR+ family of third-party accessories will be compatible with the new e-Series.

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The Robot Report Co-founded in 2014 by Kristian Kassow, former co-founder of Universal Robots, Kassow Robots is developing lightweight, 7-DOF collaborative robot arms. The KR810 (850mm reach, 10kg payload), KR1205 (1200mm reach, 5kg payload) and KR1805 (1800mm reach, 5kg payload) range in price from €25,000 to €35,000. The KR810 and KR1205 are in production, while the KR1805 will be in production at the end of 2018.

There are other 7-DOF cobot arms on the market, including ABB’s YuMi, Franka Emika’s Panda, and KUKA’s LBR iiwa series, to name a few. So 7-DOF aren’t unique to Kassow, but it hopes the combination of 7 DOF, joint speeds up to 225 degrees per second, and its reach and payload will differentiate itself from the competition.

Kassow has been testing its arms in the lab for one year. The self-funded company will initially sell its robots in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Scandinavia and Switzerland. Kassow is targeting pick and place, palletizing, pallet labelling and machine tending applications.

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Kassow 7-DOF Cobot Arms | Kassow Robotics

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The Robot Report ABB Single-arm YuMi ABB’s IRB 14050 single-arm YuMi is challenging head on the Meca500. ABB essentially cut in half its popular dual-arm YuMi, reducing its footprint, to create the new YuMi. The 7-axis IRB 14050 features the same 0.5kg payload as the older YuMi, with a repeatability of 0.02mm and a maximum reach of 559mm. It also features the same lead through programming as dual-arm YuMi for streamlined set-up.

ABB said the single-arm YuMi increases flexibility to help meet high-mix, low-volume production in short cycles. ABB envisions applications that combine the YuMi family of robots.

For example, a single-arm YuMi can be used to feed parts to a dual-arm YuMi to speed up cycle time, or added as an extra arm to integrate a testing and inspection station into an electronics assembly application.

Meca500 6-axis small industrial robot arm | Mecademic

Meca500 Small Industrial Robot Arm Our first glimpse of Mecademic’s Meca500 small industrial robot arm came in 2014.

The robot officially launched in mid-2016, and the Montreal-based company launched an upgraded version of the 6-axis arm at Automatica.

The major upgrade is the absolute encoders that allow the Meca500 to remember its position when it’s powered down or has an outage. The Meca500 also now has faster joint velocities, unlimited rotation on joint 6, and a safety module with an integrated power supply. The rest of the $15,000 robot remains the same, including the embedded controller in the base and the lack of a proprietary robot programming language, which is designed to make the robot easier to use.

The precision, which is co-founder Ilian Bonev’s specialty, is incredible. The Meca500 has a repeatability of 0.005 mm and a path accuracy better than 0.1 mm. Bonev credits this to the fact Mecademic makes many of the Meca500’s parts in-house. It buys the motors and drives from third-party companies, but that’s about it, according to Bonev.

Mecademic has sold about 200 Meca500s to date, but it expects to sell hundreds more in 2018. Primary applications, to date, include inspection and pick and place. Mecademic is seeing increased competition from ABB, Denso and Yaskawa, which all showed competitive products at Automatica. Bonev said competition is good because companies will start making tool changers and grippers, for example, specifically for smaller robots.

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ABB single-arm YuMi | ABB

Comau ‘MATE’ Exoskeleton Comau, an industrial automation provider, unveiled a spring-based exoskeleton called “MATE Fit for Workers.” This is Comau’s first exoskeleton, and MATE is designed to reduce the stress placed on shoulder muscles caused by manual, repetitive labor.

MATE doesn’t use batteries or motors. Instead, the lightweight exoskeleton offers ergonomically-assisted movement to help workers increase the precision of repetitive tasks and do the same tasks with less fatigue.

MATE is the first in a series of wearable robots it is commercializing in partnership with IUVO, a spin-off company of The BioRobotics Institute (Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna) and Össur, an Iceland-based non-invasive orthopedics company. www.designworldonline.com

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Epson Dual-arm Bertie Epson introduced “Bertie,” its new dual-arm WorkSense W-01 robot that comes on wheels so it can be moved to different locations. The 7-axis arms have a reach of 545mm and a 6kg payload (3kg for each arm) and are designed to automate complex tasks in small spaces.

Berties comes equipped with four color cameras in its head, one in each wrist, and a force sensor in each arm. It features a singleaxis waist for some flexibility. The gripper you see in the video above was designed specifically for Bertie and won’t be sold as a standalone product, according to Epson.

Epson dual-arm WorkSense W-01 | Epson

MiR500 Autonomous Mobile Robot Odense, Denmark-based Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR) launched the MiR500 autonomous mobile robot (AMR). There is no need to change the facility layout when operating the MiR500 as autonomous navigation software replaces the need for wires, magnets or QR codes.

The robot has a payload capacity of 500kg (1102 lbs), which is five-times the payload of the MiR100 and 2.5-times that of the MiR200. The MiR500 can automatically collect, transport, and deliver pallets with speeds of nearly 4.5 MPH. The MiR500 features a SICK microScan3 360° laser scanner, which provides visual protection around the robot, and two 3D cameras for detection of objects 300-2000 mm above the floor. The MiR500 features a 1300 x 900 mm load surface and an 8-hour run-time with a 1-hour battery charge. The MiR500 is the same size as a standard Euro-pallet, and the company expects the robot will be used to transport pallets in manufacturing floors and warehouses.

Omron i4 SCARA series | Omron

Omron i4 SCARA Robots OMRON will introduce in Spring 2019 the first three models of its i4 SCARA series: the i4-650, i4-750 and i4-850, which have reaches of 650mm, 750mm and 850mm, respectively. The payload can hold up to 15kg, and customers will have a choice of two Z-axis strokes (210mm and 410mm) for each robot.

The i4 series features a compact controller (iCS) is integrated into the base of the robots, minimizing footprint and requiring less wiring with no flyover cable.

The i4 features EtherCAT connectivity that allow each robot to communicate with other equipment in the production line. The SCARA robots also have a builtin display to simplify troubleshooting and predictive maintenance. RR

MiR500 autonomous mobile robot | MiR, Mobile Industrial Robots

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The Robot Report Engelberger Robotics Award winner discusses next-generation e-Series, challenges of staying atop the cobot

Q&A:

market, and trends to watch.

Universal Robots co-founder

Esben Østergaard

Automatica 2018 was quite the success for Universal Robots. Not only did the Danish manufacturer of collaborative robot arms launch its next-generation e-Series and have a major presence throughout the exhibition halls, co-founder and CTO Esben Østergaard was named a winner of the 2018 Engelberger Robotics Award. Gudrun Litzenberger, General Secretary of the International Federation of Robotics, was the other winner.

By Steve Crowe

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Known as the “Nobel Prize” of robotics, the Robotic Industries Association (RIA) has bestowed the award upon 126 robotics experts from 17 nations since its inception in 1977. The Engelberger Robotics Award honors individuals for excellence in technology development, application, education and leadership in the robotics industry and recognize outstanding individuals from all over the world.

Jeff Bernstein, president of the RIA, called Østergaard a visionary in defining a new category of robotics. “His work in the field of collaborative robot applications has allowed robots to enter previously unthinkable sectors in just about every industry,” said Burnstein. “Østergaard’s emphasis on robots that work side-by-side with people and are easy to use has created enormous interest among many small and medium sized companies who never even considered robots before. In a world that is increasingly characterized by people and robots working together, Esben’s pioneering technology advances play a pivotal role.” Østergaard co-founded Universal Robots in 2003 and in 2015 sold it to Teradyne

for $285 million. We caught up with Østergaard at Automatica to discuss the collaborative robotics market, challenges his company faces, how cobots will continue to become easier to use, and more.

What does winning the Engelberger Robotics Award mean to you?

I’m too young too retire, so I think I’m too young to receive a lifetime achievement award. Hopefully, I’m only halfway through life. It’s a great honor to win it.

It’s a big recognition that what we’re doing at Universal Robots is legitimate.

We weren’t taken too seriously at the beginning, but now the general industry has seen that collaborative robots isn’t a fad.

Tell us about Universal Robots’ new e-Series We define collaborative as the combination of fast set-up, easy programming, flexible deployment, and

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Universal Robots co-founder and CTO Esben Østergaard was named a winner of the 2018 Engelberger Robotics Award

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The Robot Report “The main challenge we have is awareness. Most of the companies we’re targeting, especially the small-to-medium manufacturing companies, they don’t yet know much about what robots can do for them. Many of them haven’t even started thinking about automation.”

safe operation. Those four core principles define what collaborative robots are. A lot of people mistake it as only being about safety, but it’s the whole package.

What we’ve done with the e-Series is upgraded all the internal features of the robot and strengthened each of those four core principles. The e-Series is safer, easier to program, faster to set up and more capable, meaning it’s more flexible in where it can be deployed. So we have raised the bar for what it means to be a collaborative robot.

Robots were too big and heavy to move around. And the companies couldn’t hire robot programmers because there wasn’t enough work for them.

They’d get bored or find other things to do. It wasn’t a good business case to hire robot programmers. On the other hand, it was also annoying to have to call someone every time a small change had to be made on the robot. That’s when we started thinking about making a robot that was easier to program and move around for different applications.

What are the benefits of the e-Series’ built-in force torque sensors?

This enables force torque applications and easier teaching of the robots. We’re showing a polishing application using the same polishing tool a human would hold. You can just add your manual tool to the robot now. Another demo shows a gripper moving down until it feels a small resistance, and then it opens and grips a part. With built-in force torque sensors, there’s no need for an external sensor to find out when you have contact. That’s all built into the robot.

Has the UR+ program turned into a profit source?

No, it’s a dating service for us. We provide a contact between problems and solutions, but we don’t get involved in the actual business. The UR+ program allows more people to automate. The problems people around the world needed to solve with our arms were repeated over and over again. That’s why we made the UR+ program – to get the partners to leverage each other’s solutions. If something is already developed once, why not try to build it into a product you can sell, and avoid reinventing the wheel.

We had these small universitytype startup companies that had great technology solutions to problems, but they didn’t have the sales capacity or global reach. The UR+ ecosystem accelerates adoption of new technology for automation. The more technology you can package and make accessible to non-experts, the more you can start harvesting the benefit of automation.

Were there new features UR couldn’t work into the e-Series that further enable ease-of-use?

Yes, but I can’t say what. We are, of course, aware of the growing competition that’s coming. We want to stay ahead.

We have the lead now, and we want to keep it that way even though the market is growing.

Describe the moment you realized robots were too difficult to use?

We had a project going on with the [Ministry of Environment and Food of Denmark] that asked our university group to figure out how to get more robots into the Danish food industry.

We found two specific companies and tried to get them to use robots to automate their production lines.

One company had to reconfigure a production line roughly every month to make a new kind of food. We tried to teach them to re-program a traditional robot and it simply wasn’t possible for them to learn that.

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What are the main challenges UR needs to overcome?

The main challenge we have is awareness. Most of the companies we’re targeting, especially the small-tomedium manufacturing companies, they don’t yet know much about what robots can do for them. Many of them haven’t even started thinking about automation.

Thinking about robots is the next step for them. We need to continue to create the market and educate the companies about the possibilities of robots. That’s the main challenge we have – getting the word out there.

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From left to right: Universal Robots’ new UR3e, UR5e, and UR10e feature built-in force torque sensors for improved precision, faster set up times, and new safety features.

So what’s the potential market for cobots?

In the US alone, there are 300,000 small and medium-sized manufacturers, and I haven’t been to one that couldn’t use robots. They all could probably use more than one robot. It’s probably similar in Europe and Asia. So the potential is enormous.

What’s the most unique application you’ve seen using a UR robot?

The one where one of our arms landed an aircraft as a co-pilot. I’m also surprised

every time I go to the movies and see our robots in a movie, [including building David, the android in Alien: Covenant].

That’s robots building robots.

But for real applications, landing airplanes is something I didn’t see coming. It gives us an idea that we’re onto something with the word “Universal.”

It’s amazing how much these robots stimulate creativity from people. We want to give people a tool that can automate their jobs and make their lives easier. But we didn’t expect it to go so far.

Thoughts on OnRobot merger?

We see a lot of activity in the ecosystem around our robots. A lot of these companies don’t just bet on us. There are other companies coming into the space, which we welcome. It’s cool to see so much activity around the robot.

It’s becoming a business to build on our robots. That’s what we wanted. OnRobot is selling in the UR+ program, like Robotiq and a lot of others. We have over 300 partners in the UR+ program.

History of Universal Robots

Østergaard co-founded Universal Robots in 2003 and sold it in 2015 to Teradyne for $285 million.

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2003: Co-founders Kristian Kassow, Esben Østergaard, and Kasper Støy meet at University of Southern Denmark 2005: Universal Robots founded 2008: First UR5 cobots sold in Denmark and Germany 2010: Expands business into all of Europe 2011: Enters Asian market 2012: UR10 launches 2015: UR3 launches; acquired by Teradyne for $285 million 2016: Introduces UR+ program 2018: Launches e-Series; Østergaard wins Engelberger Robotics Award

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The Robot Report Will UR create arms with 7 degrees of freedom?

There are some companies making 7-DOF arms. It means you can move the elbow. There’s a need [for 7-DOF arms], but it’s generally not a major one.

How has the Teradyne acquisition helped UR? Teradyne acquired the company based on our plan for growth. Teradyne is supporting that growth and hasn’t changed our strategy. It was a help to get them on board. Teradyne has knowledge about how to do things when you’re a larger company. We were a growing startup company [at the time], and we didn’t have all the procedures in place to handle larger volumes. It was pretty useful to have access to their experts in our growth phase.

Will UR change its model of only selling through integrators/distributors?

Our main vision is to get robots out, make a difference in manufacturing companies, and get people away from working like robots. I think there will always be a need for integration. But level of integration required varies. The amount of integration done is limited by the number of available integrators.

There are not enough integrators today to handle all the automation needs.

There is a need for 3.5 million automation engineers in the US alone, but there’s only 1.5 million available today.

Our mission is to make it easier to integrate and give more ownership to the factory floor. But I don’t see a situation where there’s no need for integration.

It’s becoming easier to automate, but eventually more advanced processes will be automated, so we’ll need integrators.

fear people have of technology. The fear is real, but the problem isn’t real. We won’t replace people with robots. We won’t make work go away. We’ve always used technology to make our lives more convenient and get more done in less time. But technology has never made our species unemployed. We want to be lazy, but we cannot not work. Work will continue to change, and it’s really hard for us today to guess what a job is in 200 years.

What are some cobot trends to watch?

The trend to watch is more and more competition. A lot of the new companies won’t make it, but maybe watch for who will be Number 2. I don’t know who Number 2 is or will be, but we can’t have this to ourselves forever. We welcome it as it creates more awareness. It doesn’t make us nervous. Of course we want to win, we want to stay ahead, but we also welcome the competition.

Do you foresee UR creating robots other than cobot arms?

No. Of course, Teradyne just acquired Mobile Industrial Robots [MiR], which makes a mobile platform. They have their product, we have our product. We are doing this open ecosystem approach to robots. It makes sense for Universal to continue making the best possible arm platform and then that platform can sit on MiR’s platform. RR

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What about UR are you proudest of?

One thing we see with the companies using our robots is that they’re not laying off people, they’re hiring more people.

The robots aren’t replacing people, they’re helping grow the business. When the business grows, there’s more work, which means more people need to be employed. That’s something I’m proud of.

This whole discussion about robots replacing people is there because of the

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The Robot Report

Robots

Get a Grip at Automatica With the collaborative robot market exploding, grippers will be an area of growth and increasing competition.

That was made abundantly clear at Automatica 2018 where new robotic grippers made quite a splash.

By Steve Crowe | Editor Robot Report

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While market growth has an impact on the amount of innovation taking place, Lasse Kieffer, CEO and co-founder of Purple Robotics, said a shift in mindset is also leading to new grippers.

“End users want a collaborative robot application. You can’t make that if only the robot is collaborative,” said Kieffer.

“Everything in the system needs to be collaborative, including the gripper. Until now, everyone’s been focused solely on the robot being collaborative. This is the trend in the market, but ISO standardization is also going from looking at features on the robots to the grippers because they might come into contact with the people.”

While the grippers are improving, there’s still a long way to go before they scratch the surface of being anywhere near as capable as human hands. And one size doesn’t fit all. An exec from Daimler AG spoke about how Mercedez Benz has about 50 robots that require at least 500 different grippers to perform all their tasks.

Here is a recap of the new grippers The Robot Report encountered at Automatica 2018.

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The Robot Report

OnRobot licenses a concept developed by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory for its Gecko Gripper.

With the collaborative robot market exploding, grippers will be an area of growth and increasing competition.

That was made abundantly clear at Automatica 2018 where new robotic grippers made quite a splash.

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OnRobot Merger The newly-formed company OnRobot was a big hit at Automatica. Located next to Universal Robots (UR) booth, the company combined the work of Perception Robotics (US), OptoForce (Hungary), and OnRobot (Denmark).

Automatica was the company’s comingout party with three grippers and an upgraded force torque sensor. The merger could signal the rise of another Denmark-based robotics powerhouse.

OnRobot CEO Enrico Krog Iversen foresees building an entity where everything that goes on a robot can be acquired from OnRobot with a single intuitive user interface.

“Collaborative robots have the potential to become the comprehensive standard in industrial automation,” said Iversen, the former CEO of UR from 20082016. “We want to unleash this potential by making collaborative applications even easier to implement and to carry them into completely new applications - that is the idea behind all our new products that we are presenting here at Automatica.”

The Gecko Gripper, developed by Perception Robotics, was inspired by nature, applying a similar adhesive system for gripping as the feet of a gecko lizard. Fine fibers adhere to the surface

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of an item to generate a strong grasp.

The gripper is compatible with UR and Kawasaki robotic arms. OnRobot licenses a concept originally developed by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and brought the Gecko Gripper to market.

The Gecko Gripper was one winner of the International Federation of Robotics Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Robotics and Automation (IERA) Award.

OnRobot said the Gecko Gripper will work well perforated or porous objects that are typically troublesome for vacuum-based grippers to manipulate.

The Polyskin Tactile Gripper, also developed by Perception Robotics, is a two-fingered gripper. The fingers can be individually aligned and have integrated tactile sensors in the fingertips.

This allows the gripper to precisely measure the condition of the surface of workpieces and align its gripping processes accordingly. The Polyskin Tactile Gripper is also compatible with UR and Kawasaki.

The RG2-FT, a variation of OnRobot’s original RG2 gripper, has integrated force torque sensors and a proximity sensor, that accurately detects the condition of objects. OnRobot said the gripper detects the danger of objects slipping before it happens, making handling safer. The RG2-FT is compatible with UR and KUKA. DESIGN WORLD

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The Robot Report Purple Robotics PR10 Purple Robotics is another new gripper company that has ties to UR. The Odense, Denmark-based startup was founded by a team of “three super nerds” that have a combined 18-plus years experience developing the UR3, UR5 and UR10 robots. Along with Kieffer, the Purple Robotics co-founders include CTO Peter Nadolny Madsen, and COO Henrik Tilletz Hansen.

Purple Robotics is offering the PR10, an electrical-based vacuum gripper that doesn’t require an external air supply.

The PR10 features an internal air supply with an airflow that is self-contained, according to the company. It also offers two individual vacuum channels that can use simultaneously use different suction power and lost grip detection.

So not only does the PR10 eliminate external air hoses, Purple Robotics said it’s more energy efficient than traditional vacuum grippers. Purple Robotics claims the PR10 can be up and running in about 30 minutes with no prior training, which would reduces both the cost of implementation and changeover time between production lines.

qb robotics SoftHand Industry

The PR10 was quite heavy. It has a payload up to 10kg and costs about $4700 (€4000 Euros). Kieffer said the built-in pump is a major benefit, but it’s something that could be done before.

He said, however, building a customized electrical-based pump that fit into a robot can be time-consuming, whereas the PR10 is an off-the-shelf solution with plug-and-play capabilities.

Kieffer said Purple Robotics has patents pending on the gripper and its tool changer. At press time, Purple Robotics already signed two U.S. distributors, Olympus Controls and Thinkbot Solutions, and expected to add nearly half a dozen more for coast-tocoast distribution in the US. Since UR owns the majority of the cobot market, at the moment the the PR10 is specifically designed to be used with UR arms. Kieffer said the interface is generic to fit other robots in the future, but there’s no plans for that yet.

Purple Robotics is already included in the UR+ program of third-party robot accessories. In this partnership, Purple Robotics joins more than 77 industryleading developers of robotics software, accessories, and endof-arm tooling that share a sales channel with UR.

Robotiq Hand-E Adaptive Gripper

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Schmalz also makes an electricalbased vacuum gripper that is part of the UR+ family called the CobotPump ECBPi. The CobotPump is customized to work with UR cobots and is available as a SIO-Link version without the URCap. “The PR10 is a one-size-fits-all setup that eliminates the barrier to entry that is typically caused by customers’ unfamiliarity with pneumatics,” said Nick Armenta, automation engineer at Olympus Controls. “Existing vacuum systems need custom design and usually at least five different parts, sometimes from different sources. A single package that can be bought off-the-shelf and quickly deployed without any engineering is a huge benefit for the customers.”

As for the company name, here is its explanation: “not only is purple a beautiful color, but it is a color that takes courage to use. We often get the question “why is your company name Purple?” We want people to remember us, and we want to make a difference by doing things differently.”

Robotiq Hand-E Adaptive Gripper Montreal-based Robotiq added Hand-E to its line of adaptive grippers.

Hand-E is an electric gripper designed for Universal Robots collaborative robot arms being used in industrial applications. Like Robotiq’s other adaptive grippers, the 2F-85 and 2F140, Hand-E gives users full control over its position, force and speed. The plug-and-play gripper integrates with DESIGN WORLD

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The Robot Report

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Robotiq’s Wrist Camera and FT 300 Force Torque Sensor.

“We wanted to create a product that fits any manufacturer’s needs and allows them to start production faster,” said Robotiq CTO Jean-Philippe Jobin.

“Hand-E comes with a 3-fingertip kit so automation engineers can easily integrate the gripper in their application.

Its compact and ergonomic shape makes collaborative robot hand-guiding safe and easy.”

There are two major differences with Hand-E: its high accuracy and 50mm parallel stroke are well-suited for precision assembly tasks, while the 2F-85 and 2F140 excel at manipulating bigger items.

And Hand-E’s sealed design ensures reliability in the tough conditions. Robotiq said Hand-E can be set up in 10 minutes. qb robotics Softhand Industry The qb SoftHand Industry is a soft robotic hand designed for industrial applications.

It’s based off the company’s SoftHand Research gripper that was built for the educational sector. At first glance the SoftHand Industry resembles the Shadow Robot Dexterous Hand, but it only has one motor and each finger can’t be individually controlled. qb said this reduces the cost, but because it’s made of soft materials, the hand is deformable to the objects it’s grasping. RR

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for reducing heat

when operating an open-loop step motor Reduce motor heat by reducing idle current and running current — or switch to closed-loop control.

S

Eric Rice | Applied Motion Products

Step motors are popular motion-control devices for their simple setup and accurate positioning within an open-loop configuration. But problems associated with heat generation can arise. That’s because the drive that powers an open-loop step motor doesn’t use feedback to control the amount of current provided to that motor. Instead, the drive provides full current at all times … regardless of torque demand on the motor. So the motor consumes power at excessive rates …. wasting energy and generating avoidable amounts of heat.

In some applications, operators run open-loop step motors with as much current as possible to generate the most torque possible. That ensures the motor will reach its position in the application. But as current Closed-loop step motors incorporate a high-resolution encoder and are driven by an integrated, closed-loop drive that automatically reduces current to the motor when the load isn’t demanding torque.

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Comparison of power consumption 50

Watts

40 30 20 10 0 Open loop

Closed loop

Results from tests conducted by Applied Motion Products confirm that closed-loop stepper systems consume less current than comparable open-loop stepper systems — and stay cooler too.

Step motors are popular motioncontrol devices for their simple setup and accurate positioning within an open-loop configuration.

But problems associated with heat generation can arise.

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increases, so does motor temperature. If motor temperature rises too high, windings short and the motor ceases to function. So design engineers (and motor end users) must find ways to maximize motor torque while avoiding motor overheating.

One industry approach is to set the drive to give the motor its rated current. Doing that will make the motor hot but not too hot. It’s normal for step motor temperatures to reach 70°, 80°, or even 90°C. While these temperatures make it too hot to touch the motor, the motor itself is unharmed.

But how else can design engineers (and motor end users) reduce motor heat? Here we’ll explore three more ways: 1 Reduce idle (holding) current

2 Reduce running current

3 Switch to closed-loop control First — Reduce the idle (holding) current for the motor Many motion control applications need the most torque when the motor accelerates and decelerates to meet its mark. But when the motor idles, or holds position, it requires much less torque. These instances are a good time to reduce motor current.

Most modern stepper drives do this automatically. For example, the drive might reduce idle current to 50% of the running current. More sophisticated stepper drives let design engineers program the idle current to any value between 0 and 100%. If a step motor spends even a modest amount of time sitting still, reducing idle current has a significant impact on motor heat.

Second — Reduce running current Many design engineers err on the side of caution when selecting a step motor — often choosing a motor with more than enough torque (rather than just enough) for the application at hand. In these scenarios, it may be possible to reduce the motor’s running current with some trialand-error testing. Basically, this requires reducing running current by a small amount and monitoring the motion output. If this trial run proves successful, reduce running current again and retest motor performance.

Continue making adjustments until the motor mispositions or stalls. Then slightly increase the current so the motor resumes accurate positioning. In some cases — especially when a step motor is oversized for an application — the engineer can reduce running current enough to measurably reduce the temperature of the motor.

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Third — Switch to a closed-loop step motor system The most dramatic reduction in heat generation occurs when replacing an open-loop step motor system with a closed-loop step motor system. Step motors are operable within a servo control loop when outfitted with a high-resolution encoder and powered by a suitable closed-loop drive. This relatively new system configuration necessitates that the engineer replaces the application’s motor and drive. But the magnitude of temperature reduction is usually worth it.

To review, a closed-loop step motor system uses feedback loops to accurately control step motor current, velocity, and position. The current loop ensures that the current provided to the motor by the drive is only the amount needed to meet torque demand. When the motor isn’t producing torque (or producing anything less than maximum torque) current to the motor automatically drops accordingly. This closed-loop control scheme significantly improves motor temperature … reducing it by as much as 50% or more in some applications.

Additional benefits of closed-loop steppers are quicker acceleration and higher throughput (up to 50% more torque than rated holding torque) as well as quieter operation (even to 10 dB quieter) because there’s less current in the motor windings. Plus without stalls, system accuracy is higher.

Test results confirm that closed-loop step motors draw current only when needed, so they run cooler and with less power consumption than open-loop options. Consider actual tests that run both the open-loop and closed loop variations to get the same motion profile:

• Acceleration = 100 rev/sec2 and deceleration = 100 rev/sec2

• Distance = 5 rev and speed = 10 rev/sec

• Dwell time = 0.1 sec

Both carry a set load inertia and rotor inertia and operate from a 48-Vdc power supply). Results in the graph accompanying this piece show that the average power consumption of an open-loop stepper system delivering such output uses 43.8 W. In contrast, a comparable closed-loop stepper system consumes only 14.2 W to deliver the same routine.

That reduced power consumption translates into less heat generation and lower energy bills. DW Applied Motion Products applied-motion.com

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Wider adoption of L i n e a r

M o t i o n

Smooth moves

Self-synchronizing actuators can simplify the

automation of handling large or awkward loads, and improve overall system performance.

Balancing large or awkward loads can be a challenge for many industrial applications. Whether it’s the hood of a construction vehicle, a large work platform, a solar panel or an industrial material handling system, movements that are imbalanced can impact performance, cause unnecessary wear and tear, and jeopardize worker safety. Synchronizing actuators has traditionally required complex integration of external devices and extensive configuration or programming. However, the latest generation of smart linear actuators is capable of synchronizing automatically and is easy to install.

Why synchronize actuator operation?

A load that is heavier on one end could lead to potential damage to equipment or its components if not handled properly. While some imbalance is predictable, others are the result of unanticipated events such as sudden load shifts.

Equipment designers account for imbalance by using multiple actuators, but

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Utilizing synchronization for mobile lifting platforms on vehicles provides a robust, reliable solution without the complexity and maintenance requirements of a traditional hydraulic solution.

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Leadership in Engineering Achievement Program The LEAP Awards celebrates the most innovative and forward-thinking products serving the design engineering space.

CATEGORIES Design World Additive manufacturing Advanced materials Fastening & joining Industrial automation Mechanical Motion control Switches & sensors Fluid Power World Hydraulics Pneumatics EE World Analog electronics Connectivity Embedded computing Power electronics Test & measurement

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Our world-class judging panel will be comprised of OEM design engineers from a wide variety of industries, along with other engineering experts representing the mechanical and electrical design fields.

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When properly synchronized, multiple actuators can also work together to handle loads larger than any of them could handle individually.

unless all are synchronized closely, problems can emerge. Using a pair of actuators to assist in raising and lowering the hood of a large construction vehicle, for example, can result in bouncing, slow operation, or unnecessary wear and tear if the actuators are not operating in tandem.

The larger and more uneven the load, the greater the need to synchronize the actuators that move it. Stabilizing up-anddown and side-to-side motion of a 20-meter platform supporting workers as they build a jumbo jet, for example, could require synchronizing more than 10 actuators.

Complicating the challenge is the potential for the load to vary considerably during operation as workers move around the platform, and the fact that the platform itself may not be uniform due to weld tolerances in joined segments.

When properly synchronized, multiple actuators can also work together to handle loads larger than any of them could handle individually. The likely effectiveness in synchronizing large or awkward loads varies considerably depending on whether they are using hydraulic, electromechanical or smart electromechanical actuators with intrinsic synchronization.

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Synchronizing hydraulic actuators In the simplest applications involving hydraulic actuators, designers might deploy two units to balance a wider load such as the hood lift mentioned earlier.

This would involve running fluid lines to each actuator and provide some degree of synchronization, but the actuators would not be operating with sensitivity to each other’s position. There would be no easy way to compensate for significant load changes or wear and tear that may increase over time.

When comparing a hydraulic cylinder with an electromechanical solution, one might consider intuitively the hydraulic cylinder to be a more cost-effective solution.

But considering all of the components that go into a hydraulic system (pump, reservoir, manifold, hoses, control, etc.), the electromechanical solution provides a significant reduction in overall material and installation cost. On top of that, an electromechanical system requires no maintenance and will provide a cleaner environment as compared to a hydraulic system, which has numerous leakage points for fluid, adding even more cost over its operational lifecycle.

Synchronizing electric actuators During the 1960s and ‘70s, motion designers began to replace hydraulic actuators with electric actuators. These were cleaner and easier to synchronize than hydraulic actuators but still required attention. System designers would need to program external controllers or switches to read digital position from encoders. Based on that, the program would adjust the speed of each actuator as needed to balance the load.

Embedding microcontrollers into electromechanical actuators has added significant synchronization capabilities.

Manufacturers embed logic control and switching directly into the actuator itself.

They operate with only four wires, two of which supply power, while the other two enable exchange of data across a communications network, eliminating the need for an external controller. Because all

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Applications using automation can benefit from internal condition monitoring with every smart electromechanical actuator. This keeps the actuators running within rated specification and shuts them down if temperatures rise, loads are exceeded or input voltage is insufficient.

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actuators are on a common circuit, they can read each other’s speed and position and adjust accordingly – but they still require someone to program the feedback loop that tells them what to do and when.

The latest generation of smart actuators, however, are even smarter. In a typical configuration, a user would simply connect

one actuator in the system to the switching device (i.e. simple switch or PLC) via two lowcurrent wires. Any actuator in the system can be selected. When powered, all actuators in the system will continuously communicate position and speed, regardless of load fluctuation. When the system detects any variation of position, a message is sent to each individual actuator

Manufacturers such as Thomson Industries, Inc., now embed all of the tracking capabilities and synchronizing logic within the actuator itself, making virtually any number of equipped actuators self-synchronizing.

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to either speed up or slow down until equilibrium is reached. Adjusting in step is necessary in that it enables the system to compensate for inconsistencies in load or mounting.

Applications Actuator synchronization is valuable in large-load, heavy duty applications with potential for imbalanced operation. This new technology lets users synchronize actuators each capable of handling up to 16 kN loads and with stroke lengths of up 1 meter (up to 10kN). There is also virtually no limit to the number of actuators that can be synchronized. In addition to the hood lifts and work platforms already mentioned, actuator synchronization can be valuable in many different applications.

For instance, synchronization can help automate handling tasks in automated guided vehicles (AGVs) as well as in mobile lifting platforms and assembly stations. In AGVs, synchronization can enable handling of a broader range of materials without human intervention. Mobile lifting and assembly stations can benefit from improved handling of lift gates without the complexity and maintenance requirements of a traditional hydraulic solution and also aide in effective and ergonomic lift support for off-center or awkward loads.

Synchronized actuation can also benefit solar power applications. For example, synchronization can enable more robust operation of large solar panels as they track the sun’s position, minimizing impact of wind shear and reducing the need for specialized supports. In medical applications, synchronization can lead to more ergonomic patient-handling equipment, improving the quality of patient care by synchronizing operation of equipment such as lift tables and lift columns.

The ability of multiple actuators to synchronize themselves moves the handling of large and awkward loads to a new level of capability. It results in improved and more reliable performance, and faster and safer operation as it provides more efficient and longer life of the actuators themselves.

Moreover, if the need for synchronization is recognized up front, installing selfsynchronizing actuators carries a low-cost installation, faster setup and minimal long-term maintenance requirements. As more industrial operations become digitized and connected, the need to synchronize operation of multiple actuators, and the related benefits of doing so, is likely to grow. DW

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Designing

forAdditive

Manufacturing is different To take full advantage of the design capabilities available through additive manufacturing, designers may require a skills update.

Increasingly, CAD developers are adding Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM) features and functions in their software to help designers acquire these skills.

Jean Thilmany | Senior Editor

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For the last three decades, 3D printing research has

focused on the printing process and the materials that can be used.

Now, developers are turning their attention to a third, and equally important, aspect of additive manufacturing: design needs.

Within the past three years, makers of engineering software have increasingly added new features to their CAD systems and highlighted the way the software can optimize designs. These new designs are possible because 3D printing technology, also known as additive manufacturing, can produce them, as opposed to the constraints machining and injection molding place on design choices. The engineering industry has even granted design an acronym for these features, DfAM, says Terry Wohlers, president of the Wohlers and Associates, an additive manufacturing consultancy firm in Fort Collins, Colo.

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Autodesk includes generative design in its Fusion 360 Ultimate software. The program allows engineers to define design parameters: such as material, size, weight, strength, manufacturing methods, and cost constraints--before they begin to design.

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Solidworks includes a number of tools for 3D printing to analyze, prepare, and optimize a design for additive manufacturing.

Within the past three years, makers of engineering software have increasingly added new features to their CAD systems and highlighted the way the software can optimize designs.

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These increased CAD features come as more engineering companies look to adopt additive as a part of their manufacturing process. Advantages include lowered manufacturing costs, innovative product design, and reduced weight, Wohlers says.

One big barrier to widespread adoption of 3D printing is the lack of knowledge and skills among the design and engineering workforce, he adds.

As engineers at these companies are learning, DfAM differs from design for traditional manufacturing. Newer CAD tools and features, as well as a number of specialized add-ons and separate software packages, can help engineers modify and optimize their designs for 3D printing, he says.

Though DfAM may be a new design concept to some engineers, it’s one that makes intuitive sense. They can, for example, redesign a product that was made of simple parts and traditionally manufactured, and consolidate it one piece.

By consolidating the assembly into a single part that can be 3D printed, they’ve reduced part numbers, inventory, and assembly costs, Wohlers says.

Or, they may turn their attention first to weight. Many structural components are designed with more material, and thus more weight, than needed. If a part is to be 3D printed, engineers can design parts with a higher-strength-to-weight-ratio. That design

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results in more efficient product operation, fewer materials used, and lowered costs, Wohlers says.

The use of DfAM can help engineering companies save money and bring in customers in other ways. Before design begins, a company should compare traditional manufacturing and additive manufacturing costs for the same part. The numbers determine the breakeven point of additive as compared to a conventional manufacturing method, continues Wohlers.

“If the design is not modified for additive, the breakeven point may be too low, meaning the manufacturing method is probably not a suitable fit,” he says.

“But if a part or assembly is redesigned to take advantage of additive, the breakeven point may be higher, and in some cases, dramatically higher.

Also, using DfAM methods, engineering companies can design 3D printed parts to customer specifications without substantially increasing manufacturing cost: in other words, custom manufacturing, even in lots of one, Wohlers adds.

But all that doesn’t mean DfAM is a breeze to do. It requires understanding 3D printing and the special design considerations it calls for and using a CAD system in new ways.

Additive processes vary, too, which is important for engineers to keep in mind.

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different technology and process constraints.

These constraints involve a different set of rules than encountered for traditional manufacturing methods, he adds.

“DfAM is possibly the most challenging piece of the 3D printing puzzle and requires far more than meets the eye,” Wohlers adds.

Wohlers finds that companies are asking for courses on the subject, particularly companies from the aerospace, medical, motor sports, industrial machinery, automotive, and niche consumer products.

“Over the past year, I’ve given more than 20 DfAM courses for companies wanting to deepen their knowledge and understanding,” he says.

At the end of August, he’ll conduct a threeday course on DfAM in Frisco, Colo., with instructor Olaf Diegel, a professor of product development in the department of design sciences at Lund University, in Sweden.

New CAD skills For additive manufacturing to reach its full potential across a range of industries design tools need to be more accessible and the workflow easier to navigate, says Mark Rushton, additive product portfolio manager at the CAD company SolidWorks.

CAD software can help through features like topology optimization--the ability to add material where it is needed and remove it where it is unnecessary. Topology optimization allows designers to specify loads and supports within a part to achieve full, and often improved, functionality.

Using CAD for DfAM, designers can also create lattice and trabecular structures. These are intricate, structural networks that can confer a specific component the same or better mechanical properties than a solid part. The structures—and the part they’re used in--can be produced only through the layered, additive process.

Parts made this way use less material and reduce manufacturing costs, Wohlers says.

CAD makers are quick to add DfAM features to their systems and to highlight those capabilities that can be used when designing for an additive manufacture.

SolidWorks 2018, for example, includes 3DXpert for SolidWorks, which provides a DESIGN WORLD

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PTC Creo Elements with its Direct Modeling Express 6 and Gear Generator was used to create gears for 3D printing.

direct path from CAD design to additive manufacturing. The add-on imports SolidWorks data into the additive design environment, where there are tools to analyze, prepare and optimize the design for additive manufacturing.

When engineers transfer the CAD part into 3DXpert they can check the printability of the part right away by checking set parameters such as thin walls, minimum hole sizes, and gaps, Rushton says.

The next step is to modify geometry within 3DXpert to suit manufacturing needs. The designer may choose to shut small holes that will be drilled after printing or to add material offsets for areas that need to be machined or threaded. They can also add supports by either automatically detecting areas that need support or manual adding support to specified areas, he adds.

Once a part has been optimized for 3D printing, the add-on will estimate material volume to be used as well as additive manufacturing cost and time, Rushton says.

Meanwhile, Solid Edge 2019, introduced in June, has upgraded and added to its additive tools. The system automatically readies an assembly for printing, including parts and products made from multiple colors and multiple materials, says John

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Miller, senior vice president, mainstream engineering, Siemens PLM Software.

In addition to producing Solid Edge, Siemens PLM also makes the NX CAD system that includes the DfAM features quickly becoming standard on these CAD systems.

Both NX and Solid Edge include convergent modeling tools that allow the user to bring in mesh-based data that can be used with geometries, such as solids and surfaces.

Convergent modeling technology allows for what Siemens calls the “scan-edit-andprint workflow.” That is, users can scan an existing part to bring its measurements into the CAD system as either a mesh or the stereolithography (STL) file format used for 3D printing. After the file is in the system, the part design can be further refined for printing and then the part itself can be printed from that file, Miller says.

This means an existing part can be optimized and 3D printed. The engineers might lose the original shape as they work with the imported meshes and with geometries, but they gain a more useful shape, he adds.

PTC, the makers of Creo, say that, with the software, engineers can design, optimize,

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validate, and run a 3D-print-check within the same CAD environment.

With Creo, enginers can prepare parts and create lattice designs, to ready a part for printing.

And Autodesk’s computer-generated (“generative”) designs allow users to create new, and unorthodox geometries that wouldn’t naturally occur to the designer. No matter how different, if the design is shown to work, it can be created on 3D printers, notes Ravi Akella, director of product management at Autodesk.

As discussed in our June issue, Autodesk released generative design to subscribers of its Fusion 360 Ultimate product development software. The design concept allows engineers to define design parameters: such as material, size, weight, strength, manufacturing methods, and cost constraints--before they begin to design.

Then, using artificial-intelligence-based algorithms, the software presents an array of design options that meet the predetermined criteria, Akella says.

The method adds value to the way designers can use CAD software, particularly for 3D printing, he says.

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aircraft-dividing wall. The resulting part was 45% lighter than the current partition and, if used on the full backlog of A320 planes, could save 465,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, he adds.

Exact fit for the foot Let’s take a look at how DfAM has worked for one company.

For 40 years, Superfeet made insoles that fit into shoes to offer foot comfort and to help eliminate foot pain. Over those years, as company designers have become experts in “foot shape” they began to make custom insoles for clients using an injection molding process.

Design customization led Superfeet executives to think about additive manufacturing. The process could, in theory, offer the company a way to convert the shape of a customers’ foot into digital data that could be optimized, turned into a custom insole, and printed, says Eric Hayes, vice president of marketing and product at the company.

The problem was: designers expertise was insoles made with injection molding, not 3D printing. They called in Radius Innovation and Development, a consulting company that guided Superfeet through the process needed to make custom 3D printed insoles.

Using Superfeet’s CAD data, optimized for additive, the design team produced more than forty different prototypes in quantities that ranged from five to 50. The designers and consultants experimented with multiple configurations and with CAD design to find the most effective setup for additive manufacturing.

The iterative DfAM process helped designers determine that additive manufacturing alone need not produce the entire insole. Instead, Superfeet now uses a combination of 3D printing and traditional manufacturing, sometimes called subtractive manufacturing.

The additive and subtractive mix cut the time-to-market for Superfeet’s insoles by more than half, Hayes says.

“We went from an hour down to 15 to 25 minutes on our existing custom process,” Hayes says.

The company is now exploring a way to print custom insoles on-site while customers wait at the retail store. DW

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Autodesk | www.autodesk.com PTC | Ptc.com Siemens PLM Software www.3ds.com/PLM/Software SolidWorks | www.solidworks.com Wohlers and Associates | wohlersassociates.com

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Siemens Solid Edge 2019 includes tools that automatically ready a design for printing, including designs with multiple colors and materials.

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When to use

complex

injection molding for

medical devices Complex injection molding can provide a medical device and equipment manufacturer with competitive differentiation, but it requires highly specialized equipment, skills, and engineering expertise.

Al Timm | Senior Business Development Engineer at Kaysun Corporation

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Successful medical devices satisfy the health care industry’s unique and critical needs. Complex injection molding can be a route not only to satisfy these needs, but to enhance competitive differentiation because it provides design freedom and an efficient process for creating new features as well as incorporating new technologies into a design quickly and cost-effectively.

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Complex, critical-use medical parts can be difficult to produce because they often involve uncommon shapes and sizes and require unusual materials. Complex injection molding is defined by part design, tool design, material selection, and process control. Many of the crucial decisions involved in complex injection molding should be made as early as possible in the design phase. This helps ensure adjustments can be made with minimal impact on the total cost and product development timeline. If needed, consult with an expert injection-molding partner.

That said, the choice of using complex injection molding is best determined by considering these six areas.

Why use complex injection molding?

Complex injection molding offers several benefits. You can use additional materials — such as dissimilar polymers, lenses, threaded fasteners, metal components, and other non-plastics —to facilitate assembly, optimize function, and increase durability.

This process can deliver aesthetics or visual uniqueness to differentiate products within a brand line or to separate them from the competition.

Provided the proper chemical resistant resins are used, complex injection molding can be used for medical applications involving repeated sterilization with high heat or harsh chemicals.

Complex injection molding can address the design and production challenges caused by stringent controls imposed on the development of medical products, such as those from organizations such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Plastic injection molding is a key production process for complex, critical-use medical parts and components. | istockphoto.com

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Complex injection molding can address the stringent controls imposed on the manufacturing of medical products.

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When to use complex molding Because of labor and setup costs with injection molding, the more parts that can be molded in a single run, the better. In addition, the initial tooling investment is quite high, justifying injection molding only if there are long production runs.

If multiple materials are to be used, the polymers must be chosen carefully for compatibility to ensure a permanent bond. Different plastics undergo thermal expansion at different temperatures, and any incompatibility could result in part failure.

For instance, polysulfone, a polymer commonly used in medical applications, will not bond with polypropylene, and polypropylene bonds weakly with nylon, styrene, and urethane-based elastomers.

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Further, process complexity is added when a part requires metal inserts, as is the case with some medical applications. The metal inserts added to a mold often require preheating to reduce thermal shock and improve retention properties.

Finally, a robust part does more than just meet the original requirements of the designer. It also stands up to the wear and tear — or even abuse — it is subjected to in daily use. And aesthetically, a device must maintain its appearance, with no fading, hazing, or yellowing of the plastic after exposure to sunlight, fluorescent lighting, chemicals, or other potentially harsh elements.

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Complex molding considerations The development of the mold is at the heart of the injection molding process, the step from which everything else flows. The ultimate success of the part is determined at the point when the engineering team designs, creates, and maintains the mold — accounting for the materials to be used and the quantity of the item to be produced.

This decision-making is done in collaboration with the product designer because molding alternatives may have an effect on the final product. Poor choices in any aspect of mold development will ultimately result in poor products regardless of part design, material choice, or process control.

Since medical device production leans toward high volume and high complexity, these requirements emphasize the importance of selecting the proper steel for creating the tool. Other factors include production quantity and the quality of the finish.

In general, the harder the steel, the more effort and expense are required. But harder steel molds also last considerably longer and return higher-quality parts with greater consistency.

Stainless steel is an appropriate tool steel for medical applications because it resists pitting and wear while supporting the smooth finishes required for sterilization.

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Up-front collaboration during the design phase helps ensure medical part quality during production. | courtesy of Kaysun Corporation

It also offers corrosion resistance when molding materials with high degrees of acidity. These include resins in the PVC family or certain added agents such as flame-retardants, which are often required to meet the Underwriters Laboratory standards for plastic used in medical device manufacturing.

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Material selection Just as important as selecting the material for the tool is choosing the material for the part. Five defining factors should be considered:

• Physical load. The impact expectations of the part determine if the material will withstand the conditions of everyday use without fatigue. Any degradation can lead to part failure.

• Mechanical function. Polymers must be chosen on the basis

of the medical device’s intended application. For example, a part for a surgical device that holds a blade must be made from a polymer with appropriate stiffness.

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• Thermal conditions. The exposure of the device to

fluctuating and extreme temperatures must be taken into consideration when selecting polymers. Though most medical devices are used indoors, some portable devices or ambulance equipment may be exposed to extreme heat or cold.

• Environment. Will the device come in direct contact with bodily fluids? If so, the polymers must be biocompatible in accordance with FDA regulations, as well as comply with further testing requirements, depending on the device.

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Explore our full product line online or contact us with your application requirements.

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M e d i c a l

Method Autoclaving

Amorphous polymers

Semi-crystalline polymers

Polyphenylsulfone (PPSU) offers best resistance.

Polyether ether ketone (PEEK) offers best resistance.

Polycarbonate and polysulfone can withstand finite number of cycles.

Polyamides and polypropylene can withstand finite number of cycles.

Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and polyester should not be autoclaved.

Some polyethylenes can withstand shorter cycles at lower temperatures.

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) should not be autoclaved.

Chemical (ethylene oxide) Withstand very well.

Withstand very well.

Radiation

Most withstand well.

Most withstand well; polycarbonates will discolor.

• Chemical compatibility. Will the device be exposed to

00 lb vity

chemicals? Most hospital-grade disinfectants are strong formulas, often in an alcohol base. Plastics chosen for the exposed parts of a device must stand up to these products. The certainty that a part will be exposed to chemical sterilization limits the number of polymer options, as will applications in which medications will be transmitted through plastic parts and tubing.

Stainless steel is an appropriate tool steel for medical applications because it resists pitting and wear while supporting the smooth finishes required for sterilization.

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Other factors affecting materials selection

• Sterilization. Many medical devices

must withstand regular sterilization treatment by radiation, chemicals, or the high heat and steam of autoclaving.

The table below shows some common material choices based on the product’s sterilization needs.

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The need to mold dissimilar plastics. One of the most

common complex injection molding techniques used in medical device manufacturing is multishot technology, which adds softer polymers for ergonomic and waterproofing features (such as keypads, grips, protective bumpers, and seals) over a hard-plastic substrate or the body of an impact- resistant device.

By completing these steps simultaneously during injection molding, the manufacturer eliminates costly and inefficient secondary steps from the production process. It can also result in higher quality because the material itself can be monitored

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New strides in plastics research and development are opening doors for advances in the production of medical parts and components. | courtesy of Kaysun Corporation

during production through cavity pressure feedback — a pressure reading of the resin as it is going into the mold.

The feedback provides data on the consistency of the pressure and where correction is needed, such as a change in the viscosity of the molten material.

Thus, the mold and the process must be designed to suit both the part and materials. No medical OEM would tolerate a soft-touch keypad separating from one of its handheld monitoring devices during use. Nor would they accept a waterproof seal failing because materials were improperly selected or the manufacturing process was not expertly designed.

• High-heat resins. Polysulfone and

other high-heat resins used in some medical applications and to withstand autoclaving have their own set of process considerations. These materials are more difficult — and therefore more costly — to work with, mainly due to their higher melting points, which complicate everything from safety compliance to the molding process.

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For instance, polysulfone has a melting point of 700°F compared with 500°–550°F for typical resins. Oil, rather than water, must be used to control mold cooling, requiring a longer molding process and different equipment with different risks involved.

Heating oil also takes longer than heating water and metal-braided hosing must be used instead of rubber. These higher demands mean higher risks for both safety and deviation. Since the mold itself can reach 325°F (whereas a water-heated mold typically reaches 180°F), it is subject to higher levels of thermal expansion, adding complexity to the overall mold design process.

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partner’s operations, equipment, personnel, track record, culture, and financial health.

A site visit should also be part of this process to assess the quality of the plant’s environment and team. DW Kaysun Corp. | kaysun.com

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Connect and discuss this and other engineering design issues with thousands of professionals online

Selecting a complex injection molding partner Finally, consider working with a complex injection-molding partner. The importance of selecting the right partner increases in direct proportion to the intricacy of the task at hand.

The selection process should cover every aspect of a potential injection molding

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The public’s rekindled fascination with robots has brought battling bot technology back to TV screens.

“Robots, activate!”

Leland Teschler | Executive Editor

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The main match of the night was about to begin. The announcer began to warm up the restless crowd with a little trash talk.

“In the red square, this bot is like Superman. His girl friend is Lois Pain. And you’re about to be Clark Dent. Here he comes to slay the day! It’s Captain Shrederator!”

This ringmaster’s spiel typifies a lot of the antics that go on during BattleBots, which seem to be inspired by TV wrestling but without the soap-opera back stories.

BattleBots is a competition where teams compete for the distinction of fielding the top battling robot.

After a hiatus from TV of several years, BattleBots can now be seen on the Discovery and Science channels. This new generation of hardware is a far cry from earlier backyard-mechanic-style bots. “Back in the day, BattleBots was more of a science fair/ art show/sculpture/nerd-fest event,” says BattleBots co-founder and producer Greg Munson. “It was a lot of fun but only the master designers were bringing competitive robots that could do real damage. As the sport has evolved, designs have gotten more complex.”

They’ve also gotten more dangerous, thanks partly to the availability of battle spaces that are

Marc DeVidts (left) and an Icewave team member. BattleBots producers encourage teams to brand themselves and their bots distinctively. So bots and bot teams all sport logo’ed jerseys, flashy paint jobs, and bot names that reflect specific personalities.

Copyright © 2018 BattleBots inc. | Photo by Daniel Longmire

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Marc DeVidts (left) and teammate.

The Iceway blade power comes from a concrete saw engine with a modified exhaust and carburator that boosts its output from 10 to 15 hp.

better funded. One of the most successful bots from the 1990s was designed by Jamie Hyneman of Mythbusters fame. Called Blendo, it was a full-body kinetic energy spinner weapon with a shell made from a wok. Powered by a lawnmower engine, blades attached to the shell tended to remove the bodywork of opponent robots and in some instances threw them over safety shields into the crowd. “Blendo was so dangerous that (Robot Wars creator) Marc Thorpe had to ban it from the competition because he didn’t have an arena strong enough to protect the audience,” says Munson. “People saw that design and took a page out of the Blendo book. Ziggo was a lightweight full-body spinner that did real damage to the other lightweights, it just turned them into scrap. Then Tony Buchignani built a robot called Hazard which had a bar spinner mounted on top like a helicopter.”

The current generation of battling robots evolved from these early efforts. Bot weapons now include not just horizontal full-body and bar spinners, but also disk spinners, both vertical and horizontal spinners, and even bots with multiple spinners. Besides spinners, robot designs have evolved into wedges, lifters, and

Team Huge consists of (from left) Peter Lombardo, Maddie Thumma, Jonathan Schultz, Garrett Santoline, and (not shown) Alex Horne. Schultz and Lombardo credit Huge’s durability to use of redundant components and a design ethic where components are packed in a cushioning package.

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grapplers. “Creativity and the engineering mindset takes over in the design of modern bots, distilling things down to their most pure forms that can survive and win a competition,” says Munson.

The rules of BattleBots dictate that every bot must have a weapon, but there are few formal restrictions on what constitutes a weapon. So you might wonder what prevents a team from just mounting an AR-15 on wheels and sending it out to do battle.

The answer is a vetting process instituted by the BattleBot producers.

“In the early days of BattleBots, the rule book was about 50 pages,” says Munson.

“We tried to think of every scenario we didn’t want and made it illegal. But we rethought that whole process. We wanted the rules to be as simple as possible because we wanted people to be super creative. Now we make teams fill out an application and a team of engineering safety experts must bless it before it’s allowed. In some cases weapons such as flame throwers have to be tested beforehand to make sure they can’t hurt the audience. Those types of weapons would have been totally impossible in the old BattleBot days.”

The bots that make the cut for televised bouts tend to be relatively sophisticated designs that aren’t exactly cheap to construct. Most teams have more than $10,000 invested in their hardware, and some spend upwards of $30,000 or more. And the rewards for winning a fight are mainly bragging rights.

“Winners get prize money, but we try to keep things as egalitarian as possible,” says Munson. “There’s a prize money pool that slowly escalates through the rounds. It is not a lot, but what they get helps when they leave the event with seven burned out motors, destroyed speed controllers, and batteries that have exploded.”

Inside a BattleBot Icewave is a heavyweight robot whose main feature is a 15-hp internal combustion engine (hence “Ice”) with a

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Valkyrie leader Leanne Cushing and the rest of her team. The bot features a flywheel-style weapon that sits close to the floor. Cushing says the key component that makes the weapon practical is a compact custom-designed clutch.

Commercial versions would force the flywheel to sit too high off the ground to be effective.

light-weight magnesium block originally from a concrete saw. The engine sits on top of the robot and powers a 54-in. spinning steel bar usually weighing 47 lb with its blade tips spinning at about 300 mph.

Icewave team captain Marc DeVidts, who has been building battle bots since he was 17, says the process for creating a battling robot is different than what typically goes on during conventional product design. “If you can build a battle bot, you can build pretty much anything to survive the real world. But a more conventional product is designed to balance factors such as cost, weight,

durability, and similar parameters. You don’t normally think about those things with a bot because you’re just throwing a machine into an arena for three minutes,” says DeVidts. “In the real world, you might do simulations before you actually build anything. But I laugh at the people that try to do simulations in BattleBots because they have so many unknowns. It would be quite complicated to figure it all out and it would be different for every robot that you’re fighting.”

The fact that even winning bots take brutal beatings in matches leads most teams to use simple components that are easily replaced. Icewave is a good example of that

philosophy. “Most bots are what we call tank drive, meaning that the left and right wheels are separate controllers,” says DeVidts.

“Almost all bot drive motors are just dc brush motors. The brush motors we use are about three inches in diameter and about six inches long, putting out about 2.5 hp each. You’ll see something bigger if the robot is geared toward pushing people around. Because we don’t really intend to push people too much, we don’t have one of the more powerful drivetrains. Two or three companies cater to making the kinds of drive motors you see in the bots. They are really a different class of motor. They’re literally meant to run for three minutes and burn out.”

Bronco, built by Alex Rose and Reason Bradley, carries a powerful pneumatic flipping arm that has been known to fling competitors out of the battle box.

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Most drive motors run open loop. “Very few robots do closed-loop control, either position or speed. It’s mostly just open loop and we just drive it with current – give it this much current and you go this speed.

The speed controllers are usually the same as those used to fly quadcopters. They generally all use some kind of proprietary communication protocol up in the 2.4 GHz band,” DeVidts says.

The simple design philosophy of Icewave extends to the use of batteries. “Most people use lithium-polymer batteries because of their high energy density. But some teams use the cylindrical cells because, they’re a little more reliable and can handle the heat better. But, if you really want to just get the most out of a small amount of weight and space, you go with the LiPo packs,” says DeVidts. “Part of the appeal of the Icewave design was that we don’t need a lot of batteries – the spinner motor runs on gas.

Back in 2005, that was really appealing because batteries were superexpensive.”

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Valkyrie is no Norse myth Valkyrie is a heavyweight robot armed with an undercutting flywheel which can be exchanged for a spinning bar. The team is led by Leanne Cushing who got hooked on robots when on her high school FIRST robotics team. “I did an assembly that solved a problem and six weeks later saw it work, and it worked the way I saw it in my head.

That was the point I decided, yup, I’m doing this for life,” she says.

Cushing says the Valkyrie design was proposed by a teammate. “We whiteboarded every weapon option that would have potential for doing well and hadn’t been seen in the new show. The first month and a half was spent doing aerodynamic theory. We did smaller versions of the robot as prototypes with roughly the same ratios of weapon weight and full system weight, trying to maximize the (weapon) diameter,” she explains.

Cushing also did some dry runs in other robot competitions to “see how the team handles pressure and whether there are any conflicts,” she says. “You can assemble a

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It’s not a web page, it’s an industry information site So much happens between issues of Design World that even another issue would not be enough to keep up. That’s why it makes sense to visit designworldonline.com and stay on Twitter, Google plus, Facebook and Linkedin. It’s updated regularly with relevant technical information and other significant news to the design engineering community.

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E l e c t r o n i c s

team that you think is great but then under pressure and deadlines, someone has a beef with somebody else, or someone doesn’t pull their weight, or someone buckles under stress. “ As with the Icewave bot, Valkyrie is many a product of trial and error. “The only thing we simulated was the weapon blade because we couldn’t really test one for a weapon this size. They behave differently when they get bigger and the amount of force they swing is different,” Cushing says.

Cushing also thinks younger engineers have a mindset that tends toward trialand-error methods. ” My generation thinks and builds significantly differently than engineers two or three generations before us. We have the ability to do rapid prototyping with water jet cutters and 3D printers rather than sitting around doing simulations and analysis for a couple weeks.

Why sit around wondering when you can fabricate it in four hours and just do it?” she says. “But once you have a lot of dollars at risk for the final version, then you make sure the theory does line up with your testing.”

Cushing says one of Valkyrie’s key components is the weapon motor, a 40-hp brush motor from Lynch Motor Co. in the U.K. “It’s a little pricy, but if we had used a lighter motor we wouldn’t have had the same success,” she says. “We also did a custom clutch system (for the weapon), and we might not have been successful without it. We spent two days dialing in the clutch system with about 17 different iterations.

We used basic engineering theory to make sure we were on the right track, then spent a day in the box testing. Through all this, we also went through a wacky array of motor controllers. The motor is rated for 400 A, and we made the brush holders kind of melty and blew it up. The energy we used to spin up the blade and run into an opponent would back-track into our system.”

A “yuge” bot Huge is a white, box-shaped robot with giant ultra-high-molecular-weight-polyethylene wheels. Its weaponry consists of a powerful

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pair of spinning bars oriented vertically. Visually, the effect is a little like seeing a civil war cannon painted white. Team leader Jonathan Schultz says it was difficult to fabricate the wheels from a single piece of plastic, but the approach has paid dividends. “It’s more robust than doing it out of a bunch of little pieces,” Schultz says. “The wheels are not springy. They don’t bounce, and you can’t even really bend them by hand. On TV, they look flexible because of the forces thrown around during a match.”

Huge is actually constructed as two mirrored halves. “There’s two weapons, one on either side. So there are also four brush motors, two for powering axles, two for powering the spinning blades.

Everything is self-contained. So there are also four on/off switches, four sets of batteries, four radio receivers, and four controllers for the motors,” says Schultz.

He says this redundancy is key for designing a bot that can survive a match.

“There are a lot of teams that just built one control head. If the receiver breaks, then the entire robot is dead because of one $20 piece of plastic. That’s what usually has happened when you see a robot take two hits and just crap out. But if one of our systems go down we still have the other three motors, so we keep fighting.

BattleBots mandates separate switches for weapons and the drive, but a lot of people only use one radio receiver and that is a single failure point.”

As in other bots with spinning weapons, clutch design turned out to be another key factor in the success of Huge. “We have to be mindful of energy and horsepower.

You can pack however many kilojoules of energy into the bar. But half of it goes into the opponent, half of it reflects back into you, so you have to have a plan for that,” says Schultz. “We have a V-belt drive system configured with a clutch such that any impulse going through the system hard

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should slip the belt. But I don’t initially think we totally understood the forces that were there.

Testing gives you so much more information than anything you can envision.

I think our design survived because the entire motor was shock-mounted in rubber. There’s nothing off-the-shelf in the world that could take the forces involved so every piece of electronics is wrapped in foam and tape, every connector is tightly closed, and every motor is mounted softly in place.”

There’s one last thing you can say about BattleBot matches: You’re unlikely to see the kind of sullen post-match interview that sometimes happens in the locker rooms of teams that have just lost a Super Bowl. More typical are the comments of Ed Robinson, team leader for a bot called Sharkoprion, after a lopsided loss to a grappling bot: “That was epic, that was fun! That was the most fun I’ve had in 55 years!”

Just think what Robinson would have said if his team had won…..

DW

References BattleBots, battlebots.com

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A supplement of Design World August 2018

how to get the most out of

additive manufacturing 118 Is additive right for your part?

Answer these 8 questions to find out.

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132 Ultrasonic additive manufacturing helps keep electronics warm in space

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A d d i t i v e

m a n u f a c t u r i n g

Is additive right for your part?

Answer these 8 questions to find out

Leslie Langnau, Managing Editor

Material selection is a critical part of choosing to use additive manufacturing. And the material choice is often a function of the application.

Not every design should be made using additive technology. But answers to eight questions will help you make the right choice between additive, machining, and injection molding for your production needs.

Despite the buzz and attention on additive manufacturing (AM), not every design should be built using an additive process. Just as there are tradeoffs on when to use machining or injection molding, there are tradeoffs with additive manufacturing. Answers to a few key questions will help you determine whether your design is best handled through additive manufacturing.

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A d d i t i v e

m a n u f a c t u r i n g

1 What’s the application?

The final use plays a paramount role in whether a design is built through machining, injection molding, or additive manufacturing. “It’s super important to understand how the part is going to be used,” says Jim Niekamp, President, RPM Fast. “Whether it’s simply for fit, form, and function, or it’s going to be a production part, the application really drives the decision to use additive manufacturing. And the application will push you to certain directions in terms of what type of printer technologies you’re able to use.”

2 Are there any critical part features?

Wall thicknesses, tolerances, part size, part complexity, part count reduction, customization—all will influence the choice to use additive manufacturing.

But keep in mind, each additive technology offers different capabilities with regards to part features. For example, each additive technology has different capabilities for wall thickness or accuracies. Thus, if the wall thickness or the tolerances are critical, the part may not be a good fit for additive.

Combining parts into one unit can be a reason to build a part through AM. “But there are costs in taking a part

down from X number of components to one,” says Niekamp. One of those costs involves testing. Depending on the industry, the new, lower part count design will have to prove it is as capable as the previous multi-part version.

Sometimes you can offset testing costs with savings in other areas, such as shipping, controlling the supply base, sourcing, eliminating other processes, and better lead times.

“Designers also consolidate parts because certain components are now hard to find when you’re looking at the sourcing chain,” says Jesse Marin, Solutions Engineering Partner, Stratasys Direct Manufacturing. “If you can consolidate parts you’re eliminating the process of having to go out and purchase six different components from four different suppliers. Then there’s lead times and scheduling and ensuring that they arrive on time and are to spec, so there’s a lot of that process that gets eliminated just by part or assembly consolidation.

Another part characteristic that lends itself to AM is the need for customization.

Also consider those design situations where you have a number of parts with slight changes on them,” adds Marin. Some examples include high-

When considering additive manufacturing for a part, once a designer has developed the design, a business case study can highlight the right path to take from a manufacturing standpoint.

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end aircraft interior components or custom medical applications where each patient’s uniqueness rules out full standardization of a particular product.

3 Is the design too complex to be

made other ways?

A natural fit for additive manufacturing is when a design is too complex to build using traditional manufacturing methods like machining or thermoforming.

Additive manufacturing essentially eliminates many limitations in regards to axes of freedom. “Not to say that it’s fully Carte Blanche in how you want, but it makes it a lot easier to make more complex ergonomic designs right off the bat,” adds Marin.

4 What material will the part need?

“Material selection is a critical part of the design process based on the part function. Material class selection can be based on some fundamental operational requirements of the part, such as operating temperature, environmental conditions, mechanical property or physical property needs, or cost targets,” says Dave Chapin, Addworks Design Engineering Leader, GE Additive.

While the availability of a range of materials for AM is improving, today there are still some limitations.

“High heat, certain rigidity or flexibility needs, any really specific material property called out for in a spec that must be matched exactly will limit which parts can go to additive,” says Niekamp.

Depending on whom you listen to, additive materials that are “ABS-like” or “PLA-like” are not going to give you the mechanical features you need. This belief is not always true, and is often more the result of marketing branding.

“There are a lot of proprietary materials that vendors are purposely keeping proprietary, materials that could actually be superior in their features. A “like” material doesn’t mean it isn’t “real” or suitable, says Niekamp.

With additive, a designer often must use a “like” material because it’s been formulated to build specifically with an DESIGN WORLD

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Renisha

additive technology. Especially for plastics and resins, for example, many “like” materials have been formulated to extrude or to cure with a specific light process properly.

But the material situation is changing.

Additive materials have made strides.

Notes Marin, several additive systems actually print in thermoplastic production grade material. Not “ABS-like,” but actual ABS, just processed in filament form so the machine can accommodate the manufacturing process with that material.

“We print in polycarbonate, in PC-ABS blends, in Ultem 9085 and 1010 which are also CNC materials. We’re now entering the age of actual materials.”

5 What costs are you looking to

reduce through AM? Many claim additive technology will reduce the cost of a part. There are

several types of costs a design can reduce through an AM process, including production, supply chain, assembly, inspection, and so on. Which of these costs is the focus will help determine the most appropriate AM technology to use.

Consider whether a design could include internal aspects that cannot be handled through traditional production.

Usually, complex designs are best produced through additive technology.

Designs that combine functions are also good choices for additive.

6 How many parts must be made?

Additive technologies are making parts faster, but they not necessarily as fast as traditional production technologies. For low quantities, often defined as 10,000 or less, additive can be highly cost efficient, especially if fixtures and tooling are involved.

7 Which additive technology should

you use?

Additive manufacturing has grown past the seven different ways to build parts layer by layer from a few years ago. Today there are several versions of stereolithography, several versions of material jetting, laser sintering, electron beam technology, and more. As the additive industry works to build parts faster and faster, new ways to build parts are here and more are coming.

“Knowledge of the design rules for each additive process is a must to be able to capitalize on the benefits of each process for a design,” says Chapin.

In general, designers will find they will need more than one additive technology, for example, they will need both stereolithography and material jetting, and possibly a third option. Answers to the earlier questions will help narrow the choice.

Delivering solutions for additive manufacturing Renishaw’s metal powder bed fusion is an advanced additive manufacturing process that builds complex metal parts direct from 3D CAD data in a variety of metals. We offer a range of solutions for metal additive manufacturing, from systems, metal powders, ancillaries and software through to expert advice and support service.

For more information visit www.renishaw.com/additive Renishaw Inc. 1001 Wesemann Drive, West Dundee, Illinois, 60118 United States T +1 847 286 9953 F +1 847 286 9974 E usa @ renishaw.com

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Part consolidation is often a reason to consider additive manufacturing over other technologies. For example, a heat sink can often be made as one piece.

“In some cases, extremes will make the choice clear. For example, extremes like super demanding temperatures or high requirements for energy transfer or loading requirements may give you a clear idea of the best additive manufacturing process to use, but for the most part the choice of the best additive manufacturing process is often a combination,” says Marin.

8 Should you use a service provider

rather than go in-house?

Increasingly, the answer is you will want both. Service providers can deliver prototypes or final parts fast. Inhouse additive benefits and enhances

the design skills of the design team. Which ever the direction, consider the following points: Will multiple departments want to use additive technology? Will there be enough work for the equipment, or too much?

“If you have a line up of products that you know you’re going to need to use, that you can produce with additive over the next three years, and that you can put enough volume on a printer that you’ll have at least 75% capacity usage on that printer, in-house is a good choice,” says Neikamp. “You’ll

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want enough variety of equipment so as not to limit your creativity.”

Does your company have the resources to implement the necessary additive technology?

“For example,” notes Marin, “if you’re implementing a DMLS system you’re probably looking at upwards of half a million dollars to implement a full system and that includes not only the hardware purchase but the material, the system requirements, the installation, the training behind it, the software behind it, qualification builds to make sure the machine is up and running properly and that can easily extend anywhere from two to five months depending on your expertise in implementing a system so do you have that amount of time?”

Another factor is do you want to develop in-house expertise for the future? Once designers understand how to work with additive technology, it enables them to develop unique parts that can give their company a competitive edge in an industry.

“Many factors can influence this outside of a simple business case evaluation including supply chain strategy, facility availability and suitability, part volume, existing infrastructure, (to name a few). Having said all that, we highly recommend that organizations engage with a service bureau to print sample parts and test part quality,” says Chapin. “For example, we offer a customer experience center for low-rate initial production. There are also service bureaus that use GE Additive machines.” n MPF

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The additive mindset lead to unique design and execution of the Intel Spiderbot project. More than 9,700 parts comprised of 90 unique designs were prototyped, tested, and produced within a five-week period. (Here’s a closeup of three of those designs.) The agile process enabled more iteration cycles, and parallel progress of several prototypes among mechanical and electronics design. Cost to produce using AM: $116,000. Cost to produce using injection molding: $400,000.

How to get the most out of additive

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When evaluating Direct Digital Manufacturing for production, take a methodical analysis of cost, design, assembly, materials, and process to fully understand its benefits. Here are suggested tips.

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While additive manufacturing (AM) has mostly been used as a prototyping tool, in the past five years it has matured as a means of enhancing multiple stages of the product development process, including the production of end-use parts—a process termed Direct Digital Manufacturing (DDM). A recent report published by Gartner predicts that, “By 2020, nearly 65% of discrete manufactures that expect to use 3D printers will be using them to produce components of the products they sell or service” (2016, Pete Basiliere, Research Vice President).

It has been difficult to recognize AM’s production manufacturing viability, as many have not yet shed the perception that AM is just a tool for prototyping. Thus, design engineers may be uncertain about how to use AM technologies and whether the available materials will meet their design needs.

Fortunately, the industry has made strides to produce machines and develop materials that are productionoriented. As a result, DDM is coming of age. The adoption of DDM leads to innovative product designs, shattering long-held manufacturing barriers, and making product development both less risky and more efficient.

Designing for additive manufacturing Knowledge and comfort in designing for additive manufacturing (DFAM) will enable designers to fully leverage the value of DDM. In fact, DFAM is most influential if viewed as a new design approach: a framework for the composition of a part or an assembly, and the application of specific design tools geared toward AM. Marrying DFAM with technical AM knowledge forms a mindset that is primed to leverage AM’s nuanced advantages toward designing for DDM. It is this mindset that elicits the reimagination of the physical representation of a product.

DFAM may be approached differently depending on the stage of development and other part parameters.

Applying DFAM principles at the conceptual phase can result in a design uniquely intended for DDM, which

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Since its inception in the late 80s, additive manufacturing (AM) has transformed the way products are developed. Today, development can be front-loaded with faster iteration of high quality physical prototypes.

enables the use of AM to its fullest potential. DFAM can occur to varying degrees in each of these two situations as generalized by three categories: direct part replacement, part consolidation, and structural optimization.

a deeper re-design; an aversion to making structural changes that would require additional analysis.

While direct part replacement is a viable DDM solution, per-part cost will be sub-optimal compared to other approaches that use DFAM principles.

1 Direct part replacement It is common to see parts for AM that were designed for another process, such as CNC machining, urethane casting, or injection molding. Oftentimes, continuous production of a part by CNC machining is cost or time prohibitive because of feature complexity. Or if a part is produced reactively, the motivation may be to reduce inventory, such as through a “just-in-time� program.

For direct part replacement, some minimal modifications may be beneficial.

These modifications, such as minimum wall thickness or feature size, are often motivated by material constraints.

Greater modifications are possible but might not be executed for several reasons: parts may mate closely with other components of an assembly, restricting changes in geometry; insufficient resources or time to explore

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2 Part consolidation Picture a multi-body assembly.

Now, remove all hardware, and imagine fabricating that part as a single unified body. Does it look prohibitively complex? With AM, an assembly like this, composed of several parts and hardware, can be unified using part consolidation, where traditionally it would be impossible to fabricate the complex undercuts, channels, or unreachable regions.

The value of part consolidation is dependent on whether the approach taken is retrospective or prospective.

A retrospective part consolidation can become a re-designed amalgamation of traditionally manufacturable forms.

Ideally, consolidation is a thoughtful consideration from a conceptual phase of how a part can be designed with less assembled components and with just DESIGN WORLD

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as great, if not better function than a traditionally manufactured part. Such a prospective path relies heavily on the DFAM mindset to recognize and implement ways to use the design freedom afforded by AM. In other words, starting from a blank slate doesn’t have design remnants tied to specific legacy manufacturing processes or age-old constraints, and the resulting design is usually transformational and innovative.

An example of a transformative AM design is General Electric’s fuel nozzle for the LEAP engine with metal-specific additive manufacturing, converting a 20-part assembly into one. The part is 5X more durable with a 25% weight reduction. The interior channels of the part and high temperature requirements (3,000°F) were non-issues for AM.

3 Structural optimization Structural optimization achieves a greater balance of cost, function, and print time by using simulation techniques to create a material-efficient design. This is not a reference to the minimum requirements commonly charted, like wall thickness, resolution, minimum feature size, and so on, which comprise the most basic DFAM checklist. Structural optimization refers to approaches that deliver a form that is most efficient. Efficiency can be defined relative to the goal of the optimization, but for AM it is most often quantified as achieving functional criteria while reducing material consumption (and build time).

• Generative design Generative design is a computational design approach that synthesizes parameters and objective goals into an iterative algorithm to generate optimal structures. DFAM can leverage this approach to lightweight parts, reduce materials, and instill a three-dimensional gradient of mechanical properties.

Shapes are complex, often appearing organic. In some ways generative design has led to a new design artform,

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but often the artistic expression is just derived from the original functional intent.

The increased use of generative design can be attributed to additive manufacturing improvements, capable software programs, and high-speed computing that allow finer control of the three-dimensional design space, taking advantage of additive manufacturing’s voxel and layer-based processes. These programs include Rhinoceros with Grasshopper, Autodesk’s Netfabb, and ANSYS’s topology optimization tool.

Algorithms that control model creation can generate limitless design permutations based on input parameters.

AM makes this approach viable since it makes the production demands of oneoff complex parts simple. A grand vision of these technologies integrates design and production into a fully automated, turnkey solution, from design parameter inputs to delivered printed part, with little human intervention. Aspects of this are being pioneered through efforts like Limbforge, where clinicians use patient anatomical data to generate custom prosthetic designs that are subsequently 3D printed.

“By 2020, nearly 65% of discrete manufactures that expect to use 3D printers will be using them to produce components of the products they sell or service” (2016, Pete Basiliere, Research Vice President).

• Lattice Structure design Lattice structures are three-dimensional crystalline meshes composed of beams and nodes. The level of complex, tunable geometry in these designs is high, yet the workflow to develop and modify this degree of customization is relatively simple, as it is a parameter-based algorithmic process. In fact, it would be inefficient (if not impossible) to generate many of these designs using pure solid modeling techniques.

A lattice designer has control over mesh size, pattern (called lattice topology), and other parameters through graphical interface software or direct code. Lattice structures can reduce material consumption by reducing unnecessary part mass, especially internally, essentially being a custom infill pattern. While the part often retains

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Direct Metal Laser Sintered tools can reduce lead times from weeks to days. For example, a 3 in. x 4 in. insert made from MS-1 Steel was 3D printed, CNC machined, and surface polished in four days.

its exterior surface (commonly referred to as a skin) and aesthetics, the exterior may also be continuous with the lattice to highlight and celebrate the function and form of a lattice structure.

It should be noted that lattice design doesn’t imply optimization, nor does a lattice structure need to be optimized to find value. A lattice can be applied intuitively without computational analysis. Nevertheless, it can be an invaluable tool within the workflow of finding the best solution.

• Topology optimization Topology optimization derives a form with the minimum amount of material that still achieves the defined goal.

Because it is a generative approach, multiple design configurations can be created for experimental testing without added design work. Plus, the degree of physical testing to achieve an optimal design is reduced or eliminated by pushing iteration to the software side.

It is most commonly a static analysis of external forces that determines a design with the highest strength-toweight ratio. This approach can also be extended to multi-physical problems that can include heat transfer or vibratory effects.

For example, General Electric achieved an 84% weight reduction

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of an engine bracket using topology optimization. This part went on to be 3D printed out of titanium using selective laser sintering, and estimates show how the lower weight could save the airline industry $31 million dollars through energy efficiency from just one small part!

An object’s optimized form is generated by first defining forces exerted on the object. Design goals and guidelines are then dictated before allowing the software the ample processing time needed to iteratively arrive at an “optimal” solution. During each iteration, a structural analysis is computed, and those regions that will experience less than a threshold stress or deflection are removed. This process repeats until the results of the present iteration are similar to the results of the last, and the solution is considered to have converged.

This process may be combined with lattice structures in a process called “beam optimization.” Beginning with a lattice of uniform beam thickness, stresses are simulated and beam thicknesses are varied throughout the body, resulting in a continuum of microstructures. This process not only achieves the most efficient lattice possible for the given inputs but is also a nifty approach to create a structure

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with variable physical properties in three dimensions.

Additive Manufacturing enables new design approaches Generative design, lattice structures, and topology optimization are all enabled

by AM. There are great advantages to topology optimization that pair it well with AM. By letting physics drive form, the design is unfettered by the limitations of human imagination. By letting software carry out the iterations typically used to optimize strengthto-weight cuts design time from days or weeks to hours. Plus, with AM it is possible to implement designs that most closely approximate the theoretical optimum because it doesn’t need to concede to fabrication simplicity.

Augmenting or replacing traditional manufacturing with DDM Now, by no means should one employ DDM for its own sake—a bias in favor of additive technologies can be as limiting as an aversion to it. Rather, DDM should be employed when it’s found to be the most appropriate means of accomplishing a goal. One approach is known as “Outside-In.” By focusing on how a product should function rather than how it’s made, companies drive innovation. This is an

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uninhibited mindset that, within the first stages of product conception, instills a willingness to push through seemingly impossible manufacturing challenges.

Whether destined for traditional process like CNC machining, AM, or a hybrid of both, the best solutions derive from an unencumbered analysis for the desired function. DDM has proven especially useful in many situations, whether as an end-use solution or as means to augment existing processes.

End-use parts—pilot runs, bridge manufacturing, low-volume production In many cases, a small complex part can be produced more quickly and cheaply using additive technologies than with CNC machining, vacuum forming, compression molding, urethane casting, or injection molding—even in quantities of thousands. Furthermore, at any point, updated part CAD can be seamlessly spliced into additive production, with no penalty to time or cost. Production can begin sooner and with less risk. While it makes sense to invest in injection molding at higher volumes, it can be tough to make that same investment for short-run or lower volume applications.

Jobs that incur multi-action tooling requirements like lifters and slides, which add to the cost and time of tooling, are

a reason to consider additive for enduse parts. Only produce what you want, when you want, and how you want.

Additional considerations for AM for end-use parts include materials, surface finish, and aesthetic requirements.

A range of additive machines and materials that can satisfy many end-use requirements are available, and some have even been certified for use in regulated industries like aerospace, food, and medical. These materials include engineering-grade thermoplastics for Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) and Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), various types of UV-cured photopolymers for PolyJet (PJ), Stereolithography (SL), and Digital Light Projection (DLP), and a selection of metals for Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) and Desktop Metal’s forthcoming Single Pass Jetting (SJP). Each should be evaluated for their respective strength for a specific need.

Manufacturing—jigs, fixtures, tools Traditional methods for fabricating fixtures, such as CNC machining, can slow the time to market through long lead-times. AM can offer faster, lower-cost options. And the freedom of complexity granted by AM allows the creation of uniquely functional jigs,

fixtures, and tools.

A hybrid approach of using additive technologies combined with traditional manufacturing processes is also a great way to produce jigs, fixtures, and tools.

By leveraging the strengths of multiple methods, tools with greater functionality can be produced in a shorter time frame.

Tools for injection molding At the cutting-edge of the interface between additive and traditional manufacturing is the 3D printed tool for injection molding. Direct Metal Laser Sintered (DMLS) tools reduce lead-time from weeks to days. For example, a 3 in. x 4 in. insert made from MS-1 Steel was 3D printed, CNC machined, surface polished, and used with an off-the-shelf MUD base to produce thousands of parts in four days for a large electronics manufacturer. The company had parts in their hands on the fifth day—an initial run of 25,000 Acrylite Infrared parts (capable lifetime of 50,000 parts).

DMLS tool inserts are established as a means of improving cycle times by allowing conformal cooling lines.

Complex channels of various sizes and trajectory can be designed within the tool, which flow directly adjacent to part curvature to alleviate potential hot

Here is the Spiderbot, an Intel project. Additive manufacturing was used to prototype more than 9,700 of its parts.

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spots. Exemplifying this benefit is a tool possessing a long, curved core, with a tip that reaches 300°F after 12 shots. The tool was rebuilt with DMLS containing conformal cooling lines that kept temperatures at 72°F, leading to a cycle reduction from 35 to 16 seconds, with a zero-scrap rate.

Plastic tooling using PolyJet or SLA is beginning to prove itself as a means for quickly prototyping parts in engineering-grade thermoplastics.

While 3D printed polymer tools degrade quickly under the heat and pressure of the injection molding process, several groups, including FATHOM and Stratasys, have found that 10-200 parts can be molded from a single 3D printed tool before critical tool degradation occurs.

Thus, parts made using full-scale production methods and resin can be in-hand in less than 24 hours from design completion. These parts can be

used for fit and function checks, market testing, certification tests, and so on. It is important to note that if cosmetics are a critical requirement, this process should be further evaluated as it can’t produce the same array of textures as metal and may have more surface imperfections.

Improving operational efficiency Additive technologies can be leveraged to improve operational efficiency in several ways.

• Improving part cost While AM reduces the costs of prototyping, many are skeptical that 3D printing parts have value at scale.

Machines geared toward single part production with less than exciting print speeds still pervade the industry and reinforce this perspective. Moreover, published cost analyses are generally done retrospectively on parts that haven’t been influenced by the DFAM

mindset, making them sub-optimal candidates. But with the influence of DFAM, scaled DDM has become more viable.

Certainly, parts designed specifically for AM will return better value at scale.

At the very least, a part retrospectively optimized to reduce material consumption will improve cost. But often a direct comparison is made to a part optimized for molding or CNC machining, leaving AM with an unfavorable economy of scale (including tool cost amortization).

The cost for machining and the cost for additive are driven by opposing factors: machining cost is increased by subtractive operations—the amount of material removed—while additive is increased by print time—the amount of material added. Sometimes it is a hybrid that is the most cost-effective. Either way, optimizing for cost results in a

VR Studios simplified their production of virtual reality headsets by opting to 3D print parts instead of tooling-up.

What would have been a four-part enclosure was consolidated as a two-part assembly in FDM.

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drastically different design-for-respective approach.

SLS or MJF technology suit higher volumes because they possess the largest build volumes, as parts can be suspended within fine powders and nested throughout. For these technologies, part nesting can reduce cost and still accommodate the design’s intent.

FDM builds on the surface of a tray with typically smaller batch sizes and manual change over, so until recently its costs were comparatively higher at large quantities. However, new FDM systems possess continuous build capabilities geared toward high-volume, high throughput applications.

The Continuous Build 3D Demonstrator by Stratasys is an example of a system with automated batch-tobatch change over that has made FDM competitive at higher volumes. It is also modular, so additional units can be added to a line to increase throughput.

This is the beginning of autonomous printing solutions we expect will one-day flourish in turnkey autonomous factories.

Beyond part cost DDM’s value is deeper than a comparative cost estimate. There are a number of situations where additive manufacturing can contribute to an overall efficiency of getting a product into the hands of the customer. Here are a key few.

• Tool-Less manufacturing AM compresses the time to get parts in customers hands. Prototyping with the final production geometry, material, and process, avoiding tooling and the back-and-forth, and the ability to 3D print overnight, all expedite product development.

Short-run plastic parts that require tooling have overwhelming up-front investment; the hurdles are more severe with complex or large tooling. DDM will have shorter production time-lines and will avoid delays from parts being “tuned” for fit. 3D printed tooling or 3D printed

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inserts can be quicker and less expensive than CNC machined aluminum or steel.

Naturally, much of this is situation dependent. Consider the situation where a new product will have 1000-unit volume in the first year of production— not generally enough to achieve injection molding cost-efficiency. It may be prudent to consider DDM for the first year if the product’s life cycle is short and near-term changes are possible.

Alternatively, expecting three-to-five years tool amortization and increased sales may well justify tooling from a purely financial perspective. Even in this situation we’ve witnessed DDM’s value to bridge initial orders until tooled parts are ready.

• More design iterations Several issues contribute to multiple design iterations including a design mistake not caught during prototyping and customer or client changes. AM offers value here, particularly when there is high potential for design revisions.

• Just-in-Time manufacturing DDM keeps pace with demand without having to produce excess quantities. The key advantages here are zero inventory and the agility to move fast. AM suppliers can process an order for additional parts as needed, typically with faster turnaround than CNC machining or injection molding depending on quantity. The benefits of additive can increase with an in-house printing solution because it cuts out shipping time and cost, and the pure part price is naturally lower. But the benefit is case-by-case against the additional overhead of maintaining and staffing in-house production.

The future of DDM The additive industry has exciting research and innovations on the horizon that will bolster DDM growth. These innovations are occurring on multiple fronts, from material development to combining fabrication methods like blending additive technologies with traditional manufacturing methods.

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However, DDM must first overcome two major hurdles.

Education. The next generation of engineers will have a fundamental understanding of additive processes and an additive mindset. There is an opportunity to provide design-focused courses that teach both the additive mindset and how it fits within the product development value chain.

Standards. With standards, DDM has greater use in regulated industries like medical, automotive, and aeronautics.

Additive technologies bring a new set of unknowns for single and batch quantities, because minor fluctuations in system parameters could influence the overall integrity of parts. Standards are needed at several stages of the 3D print process. First in build preparation, part orientation, slicing settings, and tool paths; then during the print, where environmental factors and printer status might be variable; and finally, during postprocessing stages and support structure removal.

Governing bodies such as the FDA have released draft guidelines for additive manufactured devices, and UL has published guidelines for 3D printer manufactures seeking industry specific compliance. IEEE has provided draft guidelines (IEEE P3333.2.5 5) for Bio-CAD File Format for Medical AM. n MPF FATHOM www.studiofathom.com Contributors to this article include Miles Wilkinson, ME; Alexei Samimi, ME; Ava DeCapri, Industrial Designer; Kaitlyn Bailey, AE; Tony Slavik AE Manager

References Brackett, D.,Ashcroft, I., and Hague, R., Topology Optimization for Additive Manufacturing, In: 22nd annual solid freeform fabrication symposium, pp348-362, 2011 Bendsoe M.P. and Sigund, O., Material Interpolation Schemes in Topology Optimization, Archive of Applied Mechanics, 69 (9-10), 635-654, 1999

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Ultrasonic

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) needed a different way to build thermal management systems that protect electronics on its satellites and rovers.

The solution came from Ultrasonic Additive Manufacturing.

Additive Manufacturing

helps keep electronics warm in space Mark Norfolk Fabrisonic LLC

A. J. Mastropietro Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology

M

Metals, refrigerants, and tubes are not the usual components of an additive manufacturing build. For JPL, though, these components are not unusual. Every mission going past Earth’s atmosphere requires numerous critical thermal systems to keep sensitive electronics from getting too hot or too cold. JPL needed a low weight heat exchanger (HX), and of course, it needed a design quickly.

Fabrisonic, with its Ultrasonic Additive Manufacturing (UAM)

technology, was able to deliver. Through a multi-year endeavor, Fabrisonic worked with JPL to qualify the UAM technology to print high performance thermal management devices. The final result passed stringent NASA tests on vibration, thermal, hermeticity and burst requirements.

JPL builds heat exchangers, like that used on the Mars Curiosity

Rover, to circulate refrigerants through tubes to protect electronics from dangerously cold situations, such as when night temperatures on Mars drop to -140 degrees Fahrenheit and to reject excess heat

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from Radioisotope Power Sources during

cool critical components. This design

the day.

has been the method of choice for

decades because it is robust and has

For decades, thermal management

systems on these satellites and rovers

long standing flight heritage. However,

have been limited to bent metal tubes

the epoxy is a poor conductor of heat,

glued along the outside of the vehicle’s

the solution is heavy, and production

structure. JPL started with a CNC milled

can take up to nine months for a single

structural orthogrid (thin ribs on a

system.

thin plate) to which aluminum tubing

was epoxied. In this design, fluid is

solution, NASA JPL awarded Fabrisonic

pumped through the tubing to heat and

initial seed funding to 3D metal print a

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CT scan of tested HX (bottom) and HX on vibration table with simulated electronics package (top).

In January 2014, in search of a better

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g

Additive materials proof of concept for a better solution. Subsequently, as the viability of a 3D metal printed heat exchanger was established, follow-on funding was awarded in June of 2015 and June of 2016 (PHI and PHII SBIR). Through these programs, Fabrisonic developed pumped fluid loop heat exchangers for NASA JPL where 3D metal printing enabled the piping to be printed integrally into structural panels.

Ultrasonic Additive Manufacturing Ultrasonic Additive Manufacturing (UAM) is a hybrid 3D metal printing technology that uses high frequency ultrasonic vibrations to scrub metal foils together to build up metal layer-by-layer to a net shape that is selectively machined. UAM print heads are integrated into a standard CNC machining center— together forming a hybrid additive manufacturing process. With both additive and subtractive processes, UAM can produce complex internal geometries considered impossible to replicate with conventional manufacturing alone. Additionally, Ultrasonic joining is a solid-state process, which enables directly printing ‘difficult’ aluminum alloys such as 6061 and 7075. Since the process does not heat the metal past 250°F (much lower than melting) the chemistry, grain structure, and material properties of the incoming feedstock are retained.

The graphic describes the steps used to UAM a typical heat exchanger.

Process steps for JPL test heat exchangers.

1

The process can begin with either a billet plate

time, UAM typically begins with the largest

substrate possible thereby only printing part

of the final structure.

2

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or printed layers. To optimize build

An assortment of tools are used to mill and shape channels into the substrate thereby

generating both a CNC surface finish and

as well as CNC accuracy. Since the

channels are milled from the top, any

pattern that can be imagined can be

created. If the channels need to vary in

three dimensions, milling and welding can

be alternated to produce complex three-

dimensional flow paths.

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3

To assure a strong bond over the void, channels are filled with a water-soluble

support material that matches the

modulus of the surrounding metal.

4

5

Any excess support material is milled off and a small slot is milled to facilitate support removal.

UAM can weld layers of metal (typically 0.006 in./layer) over top of the billet and

channels. UAM can cap as thin as

0.020 in. and up to several inches

above the flow paths.

Evolution of 3d printed HX’s with NASA JPL.

• Burst testing greater that 2500 PSI with a 0.030 in. wall thickness

Tap water dissolves the support

• Full 3D Computed Tomography (CT) scans of each

material, leaving a clean and smooth

specimen before and after mechanical testing

channel surface.

• Helium leak testing to less than 1x10-8 GHe scc/sec

7

As with other additive technologies,

All three heat exchangers passed all tests with

Hot Isostatic Pressing consolidates

flying colors. The team did a case study of a current

any porosity left during 3D printing.

production specimen versus an equivalent UAM design

6

and the results were quite encouraging:

8

If required, standard heat treat Epoxy Tube Specimen

Equivalent UAM Specimen

Thermal Design:

Epoxy tube (poor thermal)

Tube integral to structure

NASA heat exchangers require stainless steel fittings.

Part Count:

40+

1

Fabrisonic uses another solid-state welding process,

Total Mass:

1.82 Kg

1.26 Kg

friction welding, to integrate fittings directly to the

Lead Time:

2-months

2-weeks (no tooling)

schedules can be applied.

3D printed structure.

The last step is final machining to achieve thin

tube walls and structural elements from the design.

Results Over the course of the program, dozens of different heat exchangers were built and tested. The program culminated with ground-based qualification of three identical, 3D printed heat exchangers. Testing including: • Thermal cycling from -184°F to 248°F • Proof pressure testing to 330 PSI • Thermal shock testing by submersion in liquid nitrogen • Vibe testing to simulate a Saturn V launch in x, y, and z orientations while bolted to a dummy mass to mimic a typical hosted electronics package

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Thermal conductance improvement between working fluid and electronics package bolted joint interface is estimated to be about 25%-30% higher due to the elimination of epoxy.

Technology outlook The methods developed under the NASA JPL funding were quickly extended to other commercial production applications. Channel widths range from 0.020 in. to greater than one inch with parts sized up to four feet in length. To help with technology adoption, the team is exploring other key areas. For instance, the solidstate nature of UAM lets users integrate multiple metals into one build. Thus, copper may be integrated as a heat spreader in critical locations improving thermal performance with a small weight penalty. UAM also

www.makepartsfast.com

August 2018

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7/27/18 4:05 PM

Additive materials Ultrasonic Additive

has the capability of embedding sensors into solid metal

Manufacturing (UAM)

thanks to its low temperature nature. For HX’s, this means that sensors can be integrated in critical locations to

is a hybrid 3D metal

improve control and to monitor system health. n MPF

printing technology that

Fabrisonic | fabrisonic.com

uses high frequency ultrasonic vibrations to

Traditional HX production using bent aluminum tubing and epoxied saddles (courtesy of AJ Mastropietro, NASA JPL).

scrub metal foils together to build up metal layerby-layer to a net shape that is selectively machined.

Linear Components through

See the full line of Components and all the Ultrasonic MPF Materials 8-18 Vs3.LL.indd 136

7/31/18 12:22 PM

Acknowledgements The authors would like to acknowledge NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate SBIR Project Management Office (Reference Contract NNX16CP13C) and its Small Spacecraft Technology Project Management Office for enabling this work. Part of the research was also carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

References Mastropietro, A. J., Pauken, Michael, Hofmann, Douglas, D’Agostino, Saverio, “Ultrasonic Additive Manufacturing (UAM) of Heat Rejection System (HRS) Heat Exchangers,” Innovative Spontaneous Concept R&TD, Annual Report to JPL’s R&TD Program Office, 2014.

Sunada, Eric, and Rodriguez, Jose, “JPL Advanced Thermal Control Technology Roadmap,” Spacecraft Thermal Control Workshop, El Segundo, CA 2017.

Maghsoudi, Elham, Mastropietro, A. J., Roberts, Scott, and Kinter, Bradley, “Experimental Thermal Performance Comparison of 3D Printed Aluminum Heat Exchangers vs Traditionally Manufactured Heat Exchangers,” Spacecraft Thermal Control Workshop (STCW), El Segundo, CA, March 2017.

Mastropietro, A. J., Roberts, Scott, Hofmann, Douglas, Maghsoudi, Elham, and Luong, Simon, “NASA Development of Complex Heat Exchangers Leveraging Additive Manufacturing,” Propulsion Safety and Sustainment Conference, Phoenix, AZ, May 2017.

Anderson, Lucas, Swenson, Charles, Mastropietro, A. J., Maghsoudi, Elham, Luong, Simon, Hofmann, Douglas, and Roberts, Scott, “Active CryoCubeSat Project: Design and Status,” Small Satellite Conference, Logan, UT, August 2017.

Mechatronic Solutions

Mechatronics available at pbclinear.com Ultrasonic MPF Materials 8-18 Vs3.LL.indd 137

6402 E. Rockton Road, Roscoe Illinois 61073 USA • +1.800.962.8979

7/31/18 12:23 PM

IMTS 2018

preview The International Manufacturing

Technology Show is back in Chicago this year for the 32nd edition of the event. Here’s the need-to-know information on registration, featured events, and what to expect this September in the Windy City.

Mike Santora • Associate Editor Grand Concourse on opening day for IMTS 2016.

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Adaptive Machine offerings for production flexibility B&R br-automation.com At this year’s IMTS, B&R Industrial Automation Corp. will introduce track technology to support Adaptive Machine concepts. Adaptive machines can change over on the fly and reconfigure with different production modules on the same base machine platform. This new generation of production machinery is also adaptable to constant size and format changes. Plus, it’s reconfigurable to unforeseen changes through corresponding equipment changes — to convert welding modules to forming modules, for example. Such modular design unifies robotics with advanced automation to improve overall OEE, ROI, and TCO. Visit B&R Booth E-134111 where the manufacturer will show this technology and others that support profitable production… even down to batches of one.

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August 2018

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I M T S

2 0 1 8

The last IMTS show in 2016 ranked the third largest in the number of registrations and net square feet of exhibit space at the McCormick Place complex. This year, IMTS organizers seek to break that show’s record 2,407 exhibiting companies. The event will be held at the McCormick Place, September 10-15th.

Co-located shows One of manufacturing’s most comprehensive events, this year’s IMTS will also feature four co-located shows across ten pavilions.

• Integrated Automation, Motion & Drives (IAMD) USA • Surface Technology USA • ComVac USA • Industrial Supply USA

IMTS Conference There are several educational sessions during the week of IMTS. The largest and longestrunning is The IMTS Conference — Monday, September 10 through Thursday, September 13, 2018 — and is jointly produced by AMT and GIE Media. A 4-day technical deep dive (a 4-day and 1-day pass), the IMTS Conference features more than 70 sessions, attended by over 1,500 IMTS visitors. All sessions are presented by experts from within the IMTS exhibitor community. The IMTS Conference gathers industry leaders all under one roof and at one time. This portion of the event offers the opportunity to connect with industry peers and explore ideas to enhance your business.

At the show Attendees will interact with metalworking industry exhibitors displaying their offerings in categories like Metal Cutting, Tooling & Workholding Systems, Fabricating & Laser, and more.

Here is a preview of some of the new technologies attendees will see at the show.

Fine-grinding machine line expansion Supfina supfina.com Supfina has expanded its line of fine-grinding machines to include the Spiro F5 and the Spiro F12, both of which make their North American debut at IMTS 2018. Along with the Spiro F7, the three machines provide customized solutions for the “batch mode” processing of a wide range of parts.

From aluminum to steel, soft plastics to hard ceramics: No matter the material, the Spiro series achieves precise plane parallelism (≤ 1.0 µm) for precision bearings, pump gears, and valve plates — to name a few. Parts can be machined up to 20 times faster than lapping and with more precision than double-disk grinding, reducing costs. Depending on the part’s material, dimensions, starting surface finish, and removal requirements, a single Spiro can fine-grind several thousand parts per hour.

The smaller F5 can process parts with diameters of 4 to 150 mm and thicknesses of 0.3 to 50 mm, while the larger F12 can accommodate parts with diameters of 6 to 420 mm and thicknesses of 1 to 100 mm. (The midsize F7 is suitable for parts with diameters and thicknesses of 5 to 220 mm and 0.6 to 80 mm, respectively.) To learn more visit Booth #236949.

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I M T S

2 0 1 8 Robotic end effectors and more ATI ati-ia.com One product on display will be ATI Industrial Automation’s MC-10 Manual Tool Changer — a cost-effective solution for quickly changing tools by hand. Its compact yet robust design is optimized for collaborative robot applications.

More specifically, the MC-10 Manual Tool Changer has an ergonomic twist-collar locking mechanism to ensure a secure attachment of the tool and easy manual operation with tactile feedback. This tool changer can carry payloads of up to 22 lb and includes multiple fail-safe features that resist vibration and prevent loosening. Plus the MC-10 has integrated air passthrough connections and options to connect electrical utilities if needed.

ATI will feature the new MC-10 along with a variety of other robotic demonstrations. For more information about the MC-10 Manual Tool Changer, visit Booth #236417.

Making smart machines smarter Elmo Motion Control elmomc.com At IMTS 2018, Elmo Motion Control will showcase its new Double Gold Twitter ultra-small servo drive and its Platinum Maestro motion controller, which controls up to 256 axes. These motion products suit the most demanding applications in the era of Industry 4.0.

The new Double Gold Twitter is among the smallest STO-certified (IEC 61800-5-2, SIL-3) servo drives on the market. It delivers to 10,000 W and weighs only 1.2 oz — with continuous currents of 160 A (80 V) and 140 A (100 V).

This miniature drive can mounts on moving loads, on motors, or inside motors to help engineers save space, improve machine performance, reduce cabling, and eliminate electrical cabinets, all while delivering unprecedented power.

Visit Elmo Motion Control at Booth #134142 to see these and other motion solutions and capabilities for efficient and cost-effective smart machines.

Also — learn how smart drives and controls can help improve machine performance while enabling manufactures to achieve more for less at an Elmo Motion Control presentation. The Paradox of Smart Manufacturing — which won the 2018 first prize SPS Roberto Maietti Award (recognizing thoughtleading abstracts) will be presented in a session — Challenges of automation: Efficiency and flexibility.

Join Elmo product & sales enablement manager Tomer Goldenberg for this live presentation on Tuesday, September 11, 2018 at 3:15 pm (W196-A).

Registration To register visit www.imts.com/show/reg.html

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IMTS 2018

ITT Enidine

Want to Improve Product Quality?

Increase Your Machine Productivity?

Manage the negative effects of the high speed movements on your system.

ITT Enidine Inc. is a global leader in the design and manufacture of standard and custom energy absorption, vibration isolation and noise attentuation solutions.

Product ranges include shock absorbers, rate controls, air springs, elastomeric isolators, wire rope isolators, heavy duty buffers and emergency stops. From Original Equipment Manufactures (OEM) to aftermarket applications, ITT Enidine offers a unique combination of product selection, engineering excellence and technical support to meet the toughest energy absorption and vibration isolation application requirements.

ITT Enidine Inc. 7 Centre Drive Orchard Park, NY 14127 Phone: 716.662.1900 Fax: 716.662.1909 Email: industrialsales@enidine.com www.enidine.com

It’s not a web page, it’s an industry information site Stay current with the latest electronic tips, resources, and news, visit eeworldonline.com and stay on Twitter, Google plus, Facebook and Linkedin. It’s updated regularly with relevant technical information and other significant news to the electrical design engineering community.

eeworldonline.com

IMTS 2018 supplement tip pages_vs1.indd 143

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Ad Index

SALES

Aignep USA ..............................................37 Allied Electronics & Automation ........................... Cover,2,3 AllMotion ...................................................... 4 Altech Corporation ................................... 1 AMETEK DFS .............................................21 Aurora Bearing Company ...................44 Automation24, Inc. ................................... 7 AutomationDirect ...................... Gatefold Bansbach Easylift ................................... 17 Binder USA ...............................................87 Brother Gearmotors ............................ IBC Canfield Industries ...............................106 Centritec Seals .........................................14 Clippard ..................................................... BC DATA IMAGE Corporation ....................44 Del-tron ..................................................... 94 Digi-Key ......................................................13 Dorner ........................................................ 114 Dynatect Manufacturing, Inc. ........... 101

EXAIR Corporation .............................5,85 Greene Tweed & Co. .............................25 HIWIN ............................................. 93,95,97 Interpower ..................................................18 ITT Enidine ............................................... 141 J.W. Winco, Inc. ...................................... 107 Keller America ......................................... 36 Lee Spring ................................................ 96 NBK America LLC ................................... 89 OKW USA ....................................................15 Opto 22 .......................................................31 PHD Inc. .....................................................33 Pyramid Incorporated ...........................37 Smart Products USA ..............................10 TENTE Casters ........................................43 The Lee Company .................................23 Traco Power ............................................... 9 Trim Lok .......................................................19 Whittet-Higgins .......................................35 Wilbrecht LEDCO, Inc. ......................... 107

The Robot Report Supplement Bimba ................................................... 57 Festo .................................................... 55 Hannover Fair ................................... 47 Harmonic Drive ................................. 51 igus ....................................................... 75 Kollmorgen ......................................... 59 maxon precision motors ............... 70

Inside: Q&A: Universal Robots co-founder Esben Østergaard

•

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14

mcaruso@wtwhmedia.com 469.855.7344

Garrett Cona

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LEADERSHIP TEAM

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Scott McCafferty

David Geltman

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Neel Gleason

ngleason@wtwhmedia.com 312.882.9867 @wtwh_ngleason

smccafferty@wtwhmedia.com 310.279.3844 @SMMcCafferty

EVP Marshall Matheson

mmatheson@wtwhmedia.com 805.895.3609 @mmatheson

Fabulous new robots at Automatica. page 60

7/27/18 1:57 PM

Tom Lazar

tlazar@wtwhmedia.com 408.701.7944 @wtwh_Tom

New England Tubing Technologies ...... 63 NSK Precision ................................... 53 Universal Robots USA Inc. ........... 62

3D Systems ...................................... 119

Courtney Seel

mfrancesconi@wtwhmedia.com Managing Director 630.488.9029

A Supplement to Design World - August 2018

Robotics Cover_8-18_Vs1.indd 46

Make Parts Fast Supplement

jpowers@wtwhmedia.com 312.925.7793 @jpowers_media

Michael Ference

Robots get a grip at Automatica

www.designworldonline.com

Jim Powers

Mike Caruso

A supplement of Design World August 2018

How to pick the

PBC Linear......................................... 136,137 Renishaw ........................................... 121

how to get the most out of

additive manufacturing 118 Is additive right for your part?

Answer these 8 questions to find out.

COVER_MPF 8-18_FINAL.indd 117

124

132 Ultrasonic additive manufacturing helps keep electronics warm in space

7/27/18 2:01 PM

Tormach.............................................. 123 Xcentric Mold & Engineering ...... 122

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