Design World September 2026

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SEPTEMBER 2026

PLUS: HEAVY-DUTY ELECTRIC ACTUATION IN OFF-HIGHWAY APPLICATIONS PG 24

WHY PHYSICAL AI NEEDS MORE PHYSICS

THE RISE OF

PG 32

CABINET-FREE AUTOMATION

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Hot Pizza Is Great

Hot Motors Are Not Unless the motor was designed to operate hot. Our gearmotors are rated for continuous duty in 104° F environments. They feature Class F insulation that is rated to over 300° F, making them the ideal choice for applications that require dependable operation inside hot spaces. So, while you can find Bodine gearmotors in various industries such as packaging, industrial automation and medtech, they can also be found in other crucial equipment.

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Encoders Built Tough. Priced Right.

Encoders Built Tough. Priced Right.

NEW! Wachendorff heavy-duty incremental encoders have earned both IP67 and IP69K ratings, and are suited for high-pressure, high-temperature, washdown environments.

These ratings are essential for sanitation compliance in the food and beverage industry and related fields.

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AutomationDirect’s encoder catalog spans light-duty plastic-body units to 30-billion-revolution heavy-duty workhorses, all built around one promise: industrial-grade motion feedback without the premium price tag.

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Lika Electronic multi-turn absolute encoders use Ethernet or serial communication to provide position and velocity information, simplifying wiring and processing overhead while providing high-resolution, nonvolatile tracking.

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These compact devices are ideal for challenging applications where traditional encoders are difficult to install.

JTEKT light-, medium-, and heavy-duty incremental encoders are available in six body/flange sizes, with solid or hollow shafts and resolutions from 3 to 5000 PPR. They are a perfect fit for any traditional encoder application.

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Insights

Stress, movement, and leading at work Recently, my company invited employees to a free webinar focused on moving at work and integrating movement into the workday. Whether working at home or in a traditional office environment, the instructor focused on little exercises and stretches that you can do, even sitting at your computer or during a call.

She encouraged us to, when possible, go for a walk outside when we’re in a meeting if we have a hands-free option.

It’s a great way to keep yourself feeling more recharged for the rest of the day.

I enjoyed the whole presentation and followed along, but what I also discovered was that I was in a markedly better mood for the rest of the workday. My own meetings went more smoothly, and my personal interactions were all positive.

As a recent study from Wiley Workplace Intelligence shows, stress and moods at work really are contagious. In its survey of 1,591 workers, the findings show that stress doesn’t stay contained to the person carrying it; rather, it moves through a team, oftentimes faster than anyone notices.

“Employees with very or extremely stressed managers rate their own stress 1.3 points higher than those with calmer managers. What a manager shows on the outside travels directly to the people who report to them,” according to the report.

But peer-to-peer stress also spreads, at a rate that outpaces manager-toemployee contagion. The tone in a shared chat or in a meeting affects everyone — so this isn’t simply a manager issue.

The report named four things that managers can do to help.

1. Name the stress before it spreads.

If you’re a manager, it is important to openly acknowledge your own stress when it happens, because this gives your team language and an explanation for what’s occurring.

Fear of the unknown is not your friend here, and it will only exacerbate the tension.

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2.

3.

4.

Protect the moments right after a mistake. Psychological safety is built and tested right after something goes awry. How you as a manager react in the moment is something everyone will be paying attention to. Plus, your positive actions in these moments affect the next time something similar happens, as there’s not a learned stress reaction from your team.

Follow concern with action, not just empathy. Talking about stress or burnout without a corrective action is meaningless. You need to find solutions, too — change deadlines or delegate some tasks to allow the affected employee(s) to lower their stress levels.

Focus on the team climate. Because the spread of stress from peer-topeer is so destructive, make sure there are opportunities to vent, brainstorm, and collaborate on solutions to increased workloads.

And maybe I’d add back in my initial point about moving more every day at work. Reset your overall stress levels.

Share the idea with your peers and teams, too. Just as we engineers are always seeking to spot failure areas and reduce risk in our projects, we can — and should — do the same every day on the job in our office environments. And that may be as simple as stretching or taking a walk and letting that improved mood of yours be contagious. DW

Paul J. Heney • VP, Editorial Director pheney@arrowfly.com Connect with me: linkedin.com/in/paulheney

SEPTEMBER 2026

www.designworldonline.com

9/2/26 8:44 AM

SD50

Status Display

Easily Configure to Deliver Quick, and Clear Communication The SD50 is a plug-and-play status display that gives you just what you need: clear machine status without the complexity of an HMI.

Great for displaying takt time, equipment status, assembly sequences, counts, and measurements where they are most useful.

Learn more at: bannerengineering.com/sd50

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9 • 2026 | VOL 21 NO 9 | DESIGNWORLDONLINE.COM

DEPARTMENTS 4

Insights

10

Design For Industry

16

Design Notes

63

Ad Index

64

Technical Thinking

ON THE COVER

THE RISE OF CABINET-FREE AUTOMATION

SPECIAL SECTIONS

| PAG E 2 0 |

Surgeons use da Vinci surgical robot to perform common cardiac surgery PA G E 3 6

Why testing future EV batteries often begins with coin cells PA G E 4 0

FEATURES 20

Why and how EV makers are racing to get cobalt out of their batteries

24 Coca-Cola bottler installs aseptic PET line for in-house production

28

Medical robotics and AI advice from a J&J MedTech DePuy Synthes leader

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PA G E 5 8

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SENSORS

Effective sensor systems depend on well-connected cables

ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING

Why physical AI needs more physics

From humanoids catching shifting loads to predicting GPU board failures, Paul Golding of Analog Devices explains how to partition intelligence across a physical system without letting hallucinations touch the hardware.

This is how you do AM for defense

6

Heavy-duty electric actuation in off-highway applications

Ensure reliable sensor communications with these tips and best practices for proper cable and connector selection and installation.

MEDICAL TIPS PA G E 5 4

LINEAR MOTION

Electric actuators are increasingly replacing hydraulics in heavyduty off-highway equipment, offering significantly higher efficiency and energy savings.

PA G E 4 6

PA G E 5 0

The rise of cabinet-free automation

Taking the approaches of older distributed (decentralized) drive setups are cabinet-free drives.

PA G E 4 4

How to tie mobile robots into existing material handling operations

MOTION CONTROL

SEPTEMBER 2026

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SEPTEMBER 2026 • DESIGNWORLDONLINE.COM EDITORIAL

DIGITAL MARKETING

VP, Editorial Director Paul J. Heney pheney@arrowfly.com

VP, Marketing Annie Wissner awissner@arrowfly.com

Editor-in-Chief Rachael Pasini rpasini@arrowfly.com

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Digital Design Manager Samantha Goodrich sgoodrich@arrowfly.com

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DIGITAL PRODUCTION

Digital Production Manager Reggie Hall rhall@arrowfly.com

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Customer Service Rep JoAnn Martin jmartin@arrowfly.com

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DESIGN WORLD

SEPTEMBER 2026

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Design For Industry FOOD & BEVERAGE

Could AI solve Europe’s packaging compliance problem?

In a recent commentary, Neil Smith, CPG president of Schneider Electric, stated that manufacturers need to focus on data transparency through the supply chain as Europe’s new packaging regulation takes effect this month. Beginning August 12, 2026, the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) requires every food and beverage product entering the EU market to carry a signed Declaration of Conformity, and packaging that comes into direct contact with food now needs PFAS forever chemical tracking, too.

The timing is tough. Schneider Electric research, cited by Smith, shows that compliance already costs European food and beverage manufacturers 13.7% of a product’s final price — more than

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labor (12.2%) or manufacturing margin (8.0%). The UK and Ireland show a similar pattern, at 12.8%.

That was already true before this summer’s heat waves cut European grain harvest prospects by roughly 9 million tons and French vegetable growers began warning of shortages.

USDA now forecasts EU grain imports rising from 26.5 million to 28.4 million tons this year — meaning Europe is leaning harder on imports right as those imports face tighter compliance checks.

Smith argues the core problem is how supply chain data gets collected: mostly supplier by supplier, still largely by hand. Closing that gap into a single traceable digital thread via connected, AI-enabled industrial data platforms is, in

SEPTEMBER 2026

his view, the fix. Right now, only about a third of European food and beverage manufacturers say AI plays a significant role in PFAS or packaging compliance.

The UK and Ireland lead the region, with 49.2% citing AI as significant or critical for PFAS compliance and 55.6% for packaging compliance.

In related Schneider Electric research, the 2026 Industrial AI in CPG Survey, 1,453 global executives found that manufacturing inefficiencies already cost 20.3% of final product cost, with losses expected to climb toward 29.14% by 2030. AI adoption still lags expectations — just 13% of manufacturers call AI core to operations today, versus 37% expected by 2030 — with skills gaps (43%), legacy automation

www.designworldonline.com

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POWER TRANSMISSION

RETAINING DEVICES & maintenance & assembly tools BEARLOK

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BEARHUG

CLAMPNUT

TANGENTLOK

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INCH and METRIC THREADS LEFT HANDED as well as RIGHT -HANDED

ADAPTER SLEEVE ASSEMBLIES

Materials of: CARBON, ALLOY and HARDENED ALLOY STEELS Materials of: ALUMINUM and CORROSION RESISTANT STEEL

(37.5%), and poor operational data (36.3%) cited as the top barriers, ahead of compliance concerns.

Smith’s takeaway: treat traceability as an investment in competitiveness, not a one-time compliance scramble.

Manufacturers building that digital infrastructure now will be positioned for what’s next; those still chasing PFAS paperwork, supplier by supplier, will keep paying for it in the product’s price. DW The “2026 Industrial AI in CPG” study was conducted by Censuswide on behalf of Schneider Electric among a sample of 451 Food & Beverage C-suite and senior manufacturing decisionmakers across five European markets: Germany, Switzerland and Austria (DACH, n=125), France (n=100), Italy (n=100), and the UK and Ireland (n=126). Censuswide is a member of the Market Research Society (MRS) and the British Polling Council (BPC), and a signatory of the Global Data Quality Pledge; it adheres to the MRS Code of Conduct and ESOMAR principles.

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DESIGN WORLD

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Design For Industry MACHINE TOOL

Smart manufacturing has a new all-in-one machine tool probe Renishaw announced its new multi-purpose RMP400S, a solution that combines touch-trigger, scanning, and surface-finish verification into a single machine-tool probe. This combination makes the RMP400S Renishaw’s most versatile spindle probe to date.

The new probe uses Renishaw’s patented Rengage strain-gauge technology for high-accuracy probing. It can achieve a repeatability of 0.25 μm 2 σ and surface finish Ra of 0.5 μm.

Advancements to this technology allow for lower trigger forces, facilitate precise scanning measurements, and reduce part marking.

The RMP400S aims to enhance on-machine measurement capabilities by delivering high-density scanning data for both form and surface finish verification. Its functionality supports improved in-process control directly on the machine, helping engineers streamline inspection workflows.

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Justin Walford, principal product marketing engineer for Renishaw’s Machine Tool Products Division, explains what this means for manufacturers: “High-density scanning provides users with comprehensive data for enhanced traceability and reliability in manufacturing. This includes run-out, form, flatness, roughness, and waviness measurements, and delivers precise and accurate measurements of the workpiece. Surface finish verification is also integrated into the RMP400S probe’s scanning ability. This gives access to crucial information about part finish, helping to identify potential issues before they become problematic. For some applications, such as bore/boss machining, the impressive capabilities of touch-trigger, scanning, and surface inspection can even be achieved with a single probe and stylus combination.”

RMP400S is programmed with Renishaw’s Inspection Plus software.

SEPTEMBER 2026

Enhanced to include scanning, it provides a wide range of probing cycles, allowing the probe to act as a direct replacement for existing Renishaw touch-trigger probes.

Compatibility with Inspection Plus means that the RMP400S can also be programmed using Renishaw’s Set and Inspect software. This enables simple programming through an intuitive user interface, without the need for extensive G-code knowledge. Inspection Plus also ensures compatibility with reporting tools including Renishaw Central (the company’s smart manufacturing data platform), allowing for continued use of existing reporting and workflow processes. DW Renishaw renishaw.com

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Design For Industry A E R O S PA C E & D E F E N S E

New GaN-powered ESC for drone propulsion systems Allient has introduced the Vyxalon Apex Drone Drive, a next-generation electronic speed controller (ESC) built for professional drone propulsion systems.

Announced August 5 from the company’s Buffalo, N.Y. headquarters, the drive is the latest addition to the Allient Intelligent Controls (AiC) platform, targeting industrial UAV, UAS, and mission-critical drone applications.

The Apex Drone Drive combines Gallium Nitride (GaN) power technology with high-speed Field-Oriented Control (FOC), supporting both sensorless and encoder-based configurations. Allient says the drive operates with up to 100 kHz PWM switching and 25 kHz current and velocity control loops — figures the company calls industryleading for delivering precise motor response and flight control.

On the efficiency side, Allient states the GaN design cuts energy losses by up to 56% compared to conventional silicon MOSFET ESCs, translating to longer flight times. The company also says the compact GaN electronics reduce controller size by up to 50%, easing integration into drone platforms.

Other listed specs include 0.5-sec acceleration from zero to full speed, active braking and propeller position holding, and stall recovery designed to maintain field orientation during operation.

The drive ships in a 97 g, IP67rated aluminum enclosure and supports a broad 4S to 14S voltage range. Communication options include DroneCAN, DShot, PWM Digital

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Command, and optional Ethernet connectivity.

Other specifications include: • Dimensions: 80 x 40 x 20 mm • Operating temperature: -30° C to 85° C • Bus voltage: 15 to 60 Vdc • Rated current: 60 Adc • Rated power: 3,600 W • Feedback: SSI The drive currently carries a “Preliminary Release” designation. It’s positioned across defense, industrial, robotics, and agriculture markets, citing applications from public safety and heavy-payload defense platforms to infrastructure inspection, precision farming, and environmental monitoring UAVs. Allient also notes the drive will meet National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) supply chain requirements and will be included in the Defense Contract Management Agency’s Blue UAS Framework/Catalog. DW

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DESIGN WORLD

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Design For Industry INTRALOGISTICS

Electric axis supports cold-chain automation Mechanical handling and conveying systems can face performance issues in sub-zero environments when components, belts, or lubricants are not specified for low temperatures. In cold-chain applications, engineers may use insulated heating jackets around electric axes and motors or higher-torque drive systems to manage increased resistance from stiffened grease.

To help address this problem, Festo has introduced the ELGA-TB electric axis for cold-chain automation and sub-zero intralogistics applications.

The linear actuator is designed for operation down to -22° F (-30° C) and uses a chloroprene rubber belt with low-viscosity lubricant to support handling and conveying tasks in deepfreeze fulfillment areas. It supports travel speeds up to 10 m/s with 1,300 N peak feed force and provides positional repeatability within ±0.08 mm (0.003 in.) across strokes up to 8.5 m. The company states that the axis is rated for a maintenance interval of 10 million meters of travel.

Intralogistics systems often use electric motion for long-stroke handling and pneumatic components for sorting, clamping, and vacuum picking.

Combining electric and pneumatic

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platforms can require separate sourcing, control architectures, and commissioning tools.

Festo connects its electric and pneumatic product lines under a common control architecture. This allows machine builders and system integrators to combine electric gantries with pneumatic actuators while reducing the need for separate programming environments and control logic.

The architecture supports devicelevel synchronization through multiprotocol communication and adaptable motor-mounting interfaces. System integrators can standardize control and mechanical designs while connecting to an existing plant PLC environment.

Festo’s decentralized pneumatic architecture operates alongside the electric motion system. The CPXAP remote I/O platform and multiprotocol network interfaces allow pneumatic valves and vacuum-driven picking modules to be mapped,

SEPTEMBER 2026

commissioned, and monitored within the same network topology as the electric motion components.

Engineers can design, size, and commission the combined electric and pneumatic system through the Festo Automation Suite. The approach supports engineering, commissioning, maintenance and spare-parts planning across intralogistics installations. DW

Festo festo.com

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8/31/26 2:37 PM

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Design Notes EDITED BY MIKE SANTORA

How to keep your turbines corrosion-free Turbine corrosion during shipping, storage, and layup has far-reaching consequences. Cortec Corporation shares how Vapor phase Corrosion Inhibitors (VCI/VpCI) offer simple, effective turbine preservation strategies that can save significant time, money, and labor for manufacturers, power companies, and other industries connected to these high-value assets.

Turbine corrosion risks during shipping and storage Corrosion can attack new steam, gas, or wind turbines when traveling thousands of miles through changing climates over land or sea. It can prematurely age turbines waiting for installation and commissioning at a new facility.

It can even degrade spare turbines stored for emergency replacement.

Risks are greatest in the presence of coastal conditions, tropical climates, fluctuating temperatures, and other harsh environments.

Advantages of vapor phase corrosion inhibitors While some facilities opt for simple tarps or complicated canisters of pressurized nitrogen to preserve turbines, Vapor phase corrosion inhibitors make corrosion prevention efficient and effective. Corrosioninhibiting vapors diffuse throughout enclosed spaces to reach and adsorb on metal surfaces, forming a protective corrosion inhibiting molecular layer.

This layer begins to leave the surface when the VpCI material is removed, typically eliminating the cleaning and degreasing associated with traditional rust preventatives. At the same time, 16

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Design Notes DW 09-26 v2 final.indd 16

a brief opening of the space will not compromise VpCI protection so long as enough VpCI source material remains to replenish the protective layer.

Turbine preservation methods: VpCI film + internal emitters The two main components of VpCI turbine preservation are external and internal protection. VpCI-containing films such as VpCI-126 HP UV Shrink Film (outdoor conditions) and MilCorr VpCI

SEPTEMBER 2026

Corrosion can attack new steam, gas, or wind turbines when traveling thousands of miles through changing climates over land or sea. It can prematurely age turbines waiting for installation and commissioning at a new facility.

www.designworldonline.com

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While some facilities opt for simple tarps or complicated canisters of pressurized nitrogen to preserve turbines, Vapor phase Corrosion Inhibitors make corrosion prevention efficient and effective. Corrosioninhibiting vapors diffuse throughout enclosed spaces to reach and adsorb on metal surfaces, forming a protective corrosion-inhibiting molecular layer.

after the turbine has been wrapped but just prior to heat-sealing the final opening.

Turbine preservation examples Many turbines have been preserved with these simple methods.

•

•

Shrink Film (heavy-duty outdoor, longterm conditions) create an external shell that plays three roles: 1.

2.

3.

Barrier to wind, rain, sun, salt, etc.

Enclosure to keep Vapor phase Corrosion Inhibitors inside the package Source of Vapor phase Corrosion Inhibitors

For larger items like turbines, an additional source of VpCI is recommended within the enclosure to meet volume and duration needs. This can be applied by placing emitting materials such as VpCI-308 pouches around the turbine shell prior to shrinkwrapping in VpCI film. Another option is to fog the turbine flow path with CorroLogic Fogging Fluid VpCI-339 www.designworldonline.com

Design Notes DW 09-26 v2 final.indd 17

•

In England, three multi-milliondollar power plant turbines were beginning to show rust in outdoor storage with only a tarpaulin.

Protection was upgraded to VpCI132 Foam and VpCI-126 HP UV Shrink Film, providing a low-cost storage option for several years.1 In Kazakhstan, a gas turbine engine was protected with EcoPouches placed around the asset before it was wrapped and heat shrunk in VpCI-126 HP UV Shrink Film, preparing the asset for a month-long, 5,000+ mile (9,000 km) journey by truck.2 In Indonesia, five steam-turbine / generator sets were installed onsite at a refinery development project that would not be commissioned for two years. They were shielded against the extreme weather by shrink-wrapping with either VpCI-126 HP UV Shrink Film or MilCorr VpCI Shrink Film, with Desicorr VpCI Pouches placed inside the enclosures.

Turbines are critical to many industries. Preserving them with VpCI requires a small investment with potentially significant returns, given the value and complexity of these critical assets. DW

DESIGN WORLD

Why let your Accessory Power Strips and Jumper Cords swelter in foreign ports before heading out in dangerous waterways?

Have them manufactured, boxed, and shipped by Interpower® in America’s heartland. Our rugged accessory power strip is made of powder-coated steel—paint is applied electrostatically and cured in ovens to withstand everyday use in rugged environments. Tucked inside the APS are hand-wired and ultrasonically welded IEC 60320 Inlet and Outlet connections. The APS allows maximum electrical design production in one area by using only one country-specific plug and cord set from one wall outlet.

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SEPTEMBER 2026

Captain Your Own Accessory Power Strips Without Sending Them in Harm’s Way— Tariff Free!

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8/31/26 2:41 PM

Design Notes EDITED BY MIKE SANTORA

CNC machining takes WWE belts into the ring

Now operating from his garage studio in Wallkill, N.Y., Jason balances his full-time role with Dassault Systèmes (SOLIDWORKS) and his business, Jason Pohl LLC.

Jason Pohl, best known from the hit TV series American Chopper, now spends his time designing and manufacturing championship belts for organizations like WWE, producing high-precision, TV-ready components from his own shop using a Tormach 1100MX CNC mill.

After more than 16 years as the lead designer at Orange County Choppers (OCC), where he created more than 300 custom motorcycles, Pohl wanted to take his work a step further — not just designing parts but building them himself. That passion eventually led him into CNC machining, entrepreneurship, and the launch of Jason Pohl LLC. Finding a new creative outlet in CNC machining While Jason loved the design process at OCC, he often found himself envious of the machinists in the shop. As the machine shop grew quieter, Jason, like many independent makers entering CNC machining without formal training, seized the opportunity to teach himself how to run the equipment.

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“I found myself in a giant machine shop with literally no one there,” Jason said. “So, I taught myself how to create G-code for my 3D parts and started making all my own fixtures.”

The hands-on connection between design and manufacturing quickly became addictive. No longer content with creating only digital models, Jason wanted to control the entire process, from concept sketch to finished part.

How the 1100MX CNC mill and PathPilot simplify workflows After leaving OCC, Jason set out to build a fully functioning workshop — a personal space where he could control every step of the creative process. Traditional CNC machines were far too expensive for an independent shop, but his discovery of Tormach at 3D Experience World changed everything by offering a lower cost of entry compared to traditional industrial CNC systems.

“The Tormach 1100MX made it possible without risking everything,” Jason said. “It opened up doors I didn’t

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think were possible without a huge investment.”

An early hurdle for Jason was adapting to CNC machine interfaces, having learned on more complex systems that used cryptic functions and non-intuitive menus. Tormach’s PathPilot software changed that instantly.

“PathPilot uses words I already know — ‘copy,’ ‘paste,’ and ‘open’ — and it’s visual, just like working on a computer,” Jason explained. “It was five times easier than the other machines I brought myself up on.”

With PathPilot, Jason was able to get up and running the same day — touching off tools, loading files and producing finished parts with minimal setup time. The Tormach 1100MX CNC mill became Jason’s go-to machine in his workshop.

Tormach’s right to repair: Why it matters to makers Another major factor that drew Jason to Tormach was the company’s strong commitment to the “right to repair.”

Many machine tool manufacturers www.designworldonline.com

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restrict users from performing even simple maintenance without going through costly service plans or lockeddown systems. Tormach takes the opposite approach, giving owners full access and support to maintain, modify and troubleshoot their machines.

“Having the freedom to repair and maintain your own machine is huge,” Jason emphasized. “With Tormach, you're not stuck waiting on a service tech for something simple. You can keep production moving without missing a beat.”

That flexibility is essential for Jason’s workflow, especially when tight deadlines and overnight runs are the norm.

Manufacturing championship belts for WWE One of Jason’s most highprofile projects is manufacturing championship belts for WWE. He designs and machines the Men’s and Women’s Heavyweight Championship, Universal Championship and Undisputed Championship belts — all parts that need to look flawless on national television.

These components require tight tolerances, consistent surface finishes Jason uses Tormach’s 1100MX CNC mill to create TV-ready championship belts for WWE.

and the ability to meet demanding production timelines, making reliability and repeatability critical.

“Most of the belts start as designs in SOLIDWORKS,” Jason said. “I machine about 98% of them on the Tormach 1100MX and then use my fiber laser for the super fine details.”

Because WWE often operates on extremely short timelines, Jason frequently runs his 1100MX lights-out overnight to meet delivery demands.

Once machined, the components are roll-formed, gold-plated, inlaid, and then assembled, blending old-world craftsmanship with modern digital precision.

Beyond WWE, he also manufactures championship belts for companies like ABC Supply Co. and for competitions previously aired by NBC Sports.

Turning passion into a business Today, Jason Pohl has turned his lifelong love for design and making into a full-fledged business.

His workflow, from concept to SOLIDWORKS modeling to machining on the 1100MX has allowed him to serve clients with precision, speed, and creativity. His setup reflects a growing segment of small-shop and advanced hobbyist machinists bridging professional-grade output with compact, cost-effective equipment.

His advice to aspiring CNC machinists and entrepreneurs?

“If it’s your passion, just jump in and do it,” Jason said. “There’s always risk, but that’s what drives us to succeed.”

Jason’s journey shows what’s possible when creativity meets capability, and when the right tools make the process accessible, flexible, and fun. DW Tormach tormach.com

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SEPTEMBER 2026

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Motion Control JOAQUIN OCAMPO PRODUCT MANAGER BOSCH REXROTH

THE RISE OF

CABINET-FREE

AUTOMATION TA K I N G T H E A P P R O A C H E S O F O L D E R DISTRIBUTED (DECENTRALIZED) DRIVE S E T U P S A R E C A B I N E T- F R E E D R I V E S .

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anufacturers looking to optimize operations are increasingly leveraging control technologies that can identify and address weaknesses.

These emphasize digitalized connectivity for so-called digitaltransformation (DX) initiatives that yield greater insights through data.

But motors and drives — the heart of motion within manufacturing — have evolved, too. Now, cabinet-free drives are enabling new possibilities to let manufacturers boost machine responsiveness, flexibility, and productivity.

Cabinet-free drives are powersupplying motion components that can mount on or next to the motor on the machine. Some are rated IP65/67 to withstand dust and water exposure.

They connect by one or two hybrid cables incorporating conductors for power, data, and safety signals …

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and not in some enclosed cabinet with its own wiring and cooling. The core idea is the same that spurred older distributed (decentralized) drive setups. Now though, drives are even more ruggedized (and cabling more standardized) for setups that often need no cabinet at all.

Cabinet-free automation for lean manufacturing Consolidation within manufacturing has evolved from a novel concept to a requirement for many, as operators are being tasked with doing more in a smaller space. In many locations, real-estate prices have increased, prompting manufacturers to look for space-efficient equipment.

Arguably, the most important benefit of using cabinet-free drives is the space savings … especially for how it reduced the amount of cabling. When one removes a physical cabinet and the

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Cabinet-free drives provide flexibility and consolidation for manufacturers transitioning away from siloed and fixed machine controls. The result is a lean and efficient manufacturing environment.

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extensive cabling that’s needed with it by mounting the drive directly on the machine, it frees up a lot of room so operators can use the space more efficiently. There’s a financial benefit to reducing cabling as well as a reduced or eliminated cost on air conditioning for a smaller cabinet, or no cabinet at all. In short, manufacturers can have fewer connection points that can be prone to errors such as loose connections or faulty connections. As such, any reduction in unnecessary cabling can be a huge plus for manufacturers looking to save space to make room for more critical needs.

Cabinet-free automation for modularity Another modern objective for manufacturers is flexible and scalable operations — to adjust to market shifts.

Automation technologies that expedite and facilitate that shift are inherently valuable.

Traditionally, drives and cabinets have been concretely tied to a machine — it’s been an established setup designed for a singular purpose without much flexibility. If an enduser wanted to expand operations or productivity, they would often have to add an entire machine setup, which was costly and time-consuming.

Now, with more modular technology and cabinet-free drives, machines can be adjusted more easily to respond to market demands, and drives can include

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Motion Control

multiple axes on a single drive, including up to two x 30A, which more helps power multiple motors for increased productivity.

Modulars can be added without the need to change the drive cabinet in a fast and efficient manner.

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Cabinet-free motion components for energy savings While perhaps not as much of a central consideration in American manufacturing as it’s in Europe, sustainability is still an important factor for many operators, especially in its direct impact on a company’s bottom line. Energy-saving technology is growing in its adoption as manufacturers look to consolidate resources, be good stewards of the environment, and ultimately operate as efficiently as possible.

This is another key benefit of using a cabinet-free approach. Traditional cabinets need consistent cooling to make sure the energy generated from motors and drives doesn’t overheat the system.

When operators remove that element and decentralize their drives, that energy usage can be better managed and circulated. An important component of that is the actual semiconductors used within the drive.

Silicon carbide semiconductors can significantly reduce energy losses compared to traditional IGBT technology, providing a smaller product that produces less heat.

In short, cabinet-free drives allow manufacturers to more accurately determine exactly how much power they need and where it must be placed, which helps eliminate unnecessary power usage and reduce the overall cost to operate.

Migrating to cabinet-free automation can be done gradually Some manufacturers incrementally transition to a cabinetfree motor-drive setup. After all, it can be daunting to phase out standard and proven control-cabinet installs when productivity can’t be compromised. That’s why testing cabinet-free setups on an isolated workcell can sometimes work best … as that lets endusers see the impact on a smaller scale before wholesale migration. DW

Bosch Rexroth boschrexroth-us.com 154 Hobart Street, Hackensack, NJ 07601 USA +1.201.343.8983 • main@masterbond.com

www.masterbond.com

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M12 K- and L-Coding Voltage & Power supply Compact design Currents up to 16 A

www.binder-usa.com Binder - DW 09-26.indd 1 binder_USA_M12-K-L_22,225x28,2575cm_8.75x11.125Zoll.indd 1

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Linear Motion

LISA EITEL EXECUTIVE EDITOR

HEAVY-DUTY

ELECTRIC

ACTUATION IN OFF-HIGHWAY APPLICATIONS

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n a recent three-part series, we outlined how screw-based and other types of electric actuation increasingly finds use in today’s presses and other machine tools.

Off-highway equipment is also making copious use of screw-based electric actuation. In fact, electric actuators have sometimes replaced fluid power-based actuators on offhighway or other equipment where the axes are linear. This is because electromechanical systems consume energy only when moving an axis, resulting in an average efficiency of 82% in converting input power into output work. In contrast, hydraulics typically have an end-to-end efficiency

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of only 45% or so. Plus, utility electricity is generally cheaper than fossil fuels.

As evidenced by exhibits at this year’s ConExpo, there’s an increasingly wide array of stock ballscrew and rollerscrew electromechanical actuators for heavy lifting applications. Certain actuators capable of multiple tons of force are targeted to heavy lifting applications. Developed for construction, agricultural machinery, and automation applications, those with a modular design let design engineers select base components — screw drive, gearbox, motor, and mounting — to accommodate preferred motor types or connect to existing controls for reduced design and programming costs.

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This is a Schaeffler Ewellix EMA 100 actuator to replace hydraulic cylinders. Maximum forces reach 60 kN with the ballscrew version and 82 kN with the roller-screw version. Efficient electric motors with holding brakes are standard, and adapters allow motors from other manufacturers. The gear unit is flanged between actuator and motor for either a spur gear or belt drive; motors can also directly mount to the mechanical screw drive.

Some ballscrew-based electric actuators enable energy recovery during braking or lowering. Complementing this capability are ballscrews (along with spur gears and seals) that are frictionoptimized. Such components can yield top efficiency — especially when they’re paired with a synchronous servomotor of efficiency class IE4 or higher.

With some actuator series, design engineers can specify a speed limit with a centrifugal brake so there’s safe load lowering without power.

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Multiple mounting options simplify integration into different applications. For example, some push tubes are available with a T-Bar, threaded male-connection pin, internal threads, or a screwed-on rod end. Motor-side mounting options can include trunnion mounts on the bearing housing or two rear attachments on the gearbox.

Very large ballscrew actuators capable of many tons of output force often feature vents to maintain IP66 while in motion.

Actuator product series that come in ballscrew and roller-screw versions are often offered to replace hydraulic cylinders on mini excavators and mini wheel loaders. These actuators feature a compact design and various mounting options. High positioning accuracy and controllability via bus system lets several drives operate synchronously for more combined power. Typical speeds reach 750 mm/sec and strokes 2 m. DW

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Shown at this year’s ConExpo, the Schaeffler Ewellix EMA-80 3-ton electromechanical actuator has a compact, modular, and fully electric (oil-free) design. In fact, this actuator delivers high power density and energy efficiency for heavy lifting applications.

Based on a modular platform, the EMA-80 easily integrates into machinery while offering high force output and extended service life. The EMA-80 also supports peak loads to 31 kN, strokes to 1,500 mm, and speeds to 160 mm/ sec. The actuators are often fitted with efficient asynchronous or synchronous motors with peak outputs to 5 kW. A B-side brake in the motor for static holding works even during power outages.

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9/1/26 11:03 AM

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Sensors

Typical challenges when selecting sensor cables and connectors Choosing the wrong cable and connector can result in signal incompatibility or loss, electrical noise, and downtime. These are often the unacceptable consequences for equipment that demands accurate data delivery and 24/7 operation.

SENSOR SYSTEMS EFFECTIVE

E n s u re re l i a b l e s e n s o r communications with these tips a n d b e s t p ra c t i c e s fo r p ro p e r cable and connector selection and installation.

DEPEND ON WELL-CONNECTED CABLES

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hen your machine design includes sensors in automated equipment, data centers, medical devices, or process control systems, selecting the right device is just the first step. To achieve accurate performance, real-time transmission of sensor data and long operating life, a lot goes into finding the right sensor cable and connecting it properly.

Factors such as electrical requirements, durability, and signal

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integrity are just some of the considerations designers must address to successfully meet their application requirements. This overview details important selection criteria and provides the best practices that specifiers and installers should follow.

incompatibility or loss, electrical noise, and downtime. These are often the unacceptable consequences for equipment that demands accurate data delivery and 24/7 operation. That’s why it’s important to select sensor cables with the following questions in mind:

Typical challenges when selecting sensor cables and connectors Choosing the wrong cable and connector can result in signal

How many cables does the installation need? The number of cables the installation requires will depend on the sensor itself and its pin count, which

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is based on a connected component’s function and the application’s power and signal requirements. For example, applications involving high-speed data exchange will require more cables.

What is the correct connector style?

Sensor pins are often configured to popular connector types such as M8 and M12, which have corresponding coding systems that specify appropriate pin counts.

A-coded connectors are the most common style for sensors, actuators, and motors. A-coded M8 connectors are typically available in configurations ranging from three to eight pins, while A-coded M12 connectors can have two to 17 pins, with the three- to five-pin configurations being the most common for sensor applications. In addition, L, K, and T codes are higher-power, purpose-built A-code variants. L-coded connectors are particularly common in international markets and take up less space. Another style, C-code, is typically used with AC-powered devices, including sensors. D-coded connectors are used with Ethernet and Profinet networking cables to accommodate up to 100 Mbps. Increasingly popular X-coded connectors have eight pins and handle 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 Gb/s).

Coded cables have unique keyways that prevent them from being used in incorrect applications.

While 7⁄8-in. M8 and M12 are the most common connector configurations, more power-hungry applications typically require larger connectors. For example, the M23 size can handle up to 30A, and M40 connectors can support up to 60A. Both are metric-thread types appropriate for encoder feedback in servo systems and typically feature robust construction with metal housings and designated data pins.

What are the power requirements?

Remember basics such as making sure the voltage rating satisfies the peak voltage requirement, and that the wire diameter can adequately handle the

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current without overheating. Also note that longer cables may require a longer conductor to maintain proper voltage on the sensor end of the run.

How thick should the cable be? For many industrial applications, 22 or 24 AWG is appropriate. While thinner cables are often used for shorter runs, they also have higher resistance.

Therefore, longer runs require thicker cable to overcome voltage drops that can otherwise cause power insufficiency for the sensor as well as data errors.

Thicker wires are also more durable, allowing them to withstand various physical conditions.

What are the data transmission speed requirements, and which protocol is ideal? Basic fieldbus cables are typically acceptable for low-speed sensor data transmission, while higher speeds require Ethernet cables such as Cat 5e (up to 1 Gbps), Cat 6, Cat 6a, or Cat 8 (up to 10 Gbps). Also shield sensor cables to avoid electromagnetic interference (EMI) and ensure cable runs account for signal loss typical of high-speed data exchange over longer distances. When connecting distributed I/O or remote sensors to a central programmable logic controller (PLC), consider Profibus.

What is the cable’s bend radius?

Over-bending cables in tight panel spaces can compromise cable lifespan and signal integrity. This stress can

damage internal conductors and insulation, leading to distorted signals and, ultimately, inaccurate sensor data. If space is tight, consider angled connectors that can avoid extreme bends and improve cable organization.

What harsh conditions will the cable and assembly encounter? As with any industrial or outdoor application, account for potentially damaging conditions.

Common challenges include oil and chemicals, continuous movement, extreme temperatures, and sunlight.

Material selection is important: choose polyvinyl chloride (PVC) for protection against moisture, water, and sunlight in static applications, and polyurethane (PUR) for chemical and abrasion resistance, and bending.

Also, look for cables with high ingress protection (IP) if moisture and dust will be present. For connections, goldplated contacts provide exceptional resistance to corrosion, moisture, dust, and wear, ensuring greater reliability especially in signal processing and control panel installations.

Proper installation is just as crucial to the cable’s — and ultimately the sensor’s — performance and reliability in its intended application. Here are just some of the details to remember to get the most out of your sensor connections.

Make sure the cables meet all the specifications. The previous section addressed questions concerning power, data exchange, signal integrity,

M12 STYLE CONNECTORS

M12 connectors can have two to 17 pins, with the three- to five-pin configurations being the most common for sensor applications.

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environmental factors, and both cable configuration and mechanical specifications. With these questions answered, implementers should be well on their way to a smooth installation and an easy-to-manage system.

Confirm cable and connector compatibility. The cable should match the connector type and its pin configuration.

Tighten connections. Loose connections create a long list of potential problems like overheating, arcing, mismatched impedances, and susceptibility to damaging vibrations.

Keep in mind, however, that overtightening the connections may also lead to damage.

Comprehensive and visible marking.

Clearly marked cables — on both ends — prevent misconnections and the associated electrical faults and equipment damage. Visible labels also make maintenance faster and easier. ai175146660980_JSXawADPrint Ready.pdf 1

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Shielding/signal integrity. Use shielded cables to protect against interference that could disrupt data transmission and distort sensor information. This is especially important for applications with high data rates as well as those near motors and drives.

Many Altech cables are available in shielded versions.

Use IP-rated cables and connectors in harsh environments. Depending on their intended environment, cables may be prone to incursion from dust, moisture, and chemicals and their consequences — including safety risks. Components with high ingress protection (IP) ratings offer greater peace of mind. For example, Altech sensor cable assemblies are rated to IP67, which indicates they are dust-tight and protected against the effects of temporary immersion in water.

connectors, bulkhead, panel feed-through, and field-wired connections. Taken together, these options provide designers with tremendous flexibility to obtain an ideal assembly for their sensor-based systems.

Achieve an optimally performing sensor system Specifying and installing a sensor cable system presents many challenges and considerations. Work closely with your sensor cable and connector vendor, answer the important sensor cable selection questions and follow best practices for installation. You’ll achieve an optimally performing system that will reliably meet your application needs for years to come. DW

Altech altechcorp.com

A suitable vendor provides many features and options When it comes to fast, accurate delivery of sensor data, there’s no substitute for cables and connectors that cover your requirements and installation challenges.

At Altech, we offer a wide range of standard cable products featuring durable PVC and PUR materials, robust nylon housings, standard lengths of one, two, five, and 10 meters, and custom lengths if required. Altech cables are available in wire sizes from 22 to 26 AWG, and assemblies carry 30-, 60-, and 250-V ratings.

We also have a comprehensive connector lineup that includes 7⁄8-inch thread A-coded M8 and M12 sizes with three, four, five, eight, or 12 poles, male and female. B-coded units are also available for fieldbus applications.

Metric-sized M23 and M40 connectors are also available, with M23 having 12, 15, and 19 pole counts, and M40 units with six, eight, or nine positions. All Altech connectors are designed for easy identification.

Options include straight and angled types, overmolded cables, screw connections, solder terminals, dual www.designworldonline.com

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Electronic Engineering AIMEE KALNOSKAS EDITORIAL DIRECTOR EEWORLD

why

physical

AI needs more

physics

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hysical AI is everywhere lately, though nobody seems to agree on exactly where its boundaries are. The phrase grew up in the robotics community, where the physical parameters that matter most are kinematic: navigating a Cartesian world without running into things. Paul Golding, head of physical intelligence at Analog Devices, thinks that framing is too narrow, and after a half hour on the phone with him, I came away with a better mental model for where AI actually belongs in a physical system.

Golding is less interested in defining the term than in where intelligence sits inside a physical system. Today’s foundation models, such as transformers, attention networks, and their relatives, learn primarily from text and images. Sensor data has different rules.

“You could point the camera out the window at apples falling from a tree, and it would eventually be able to predict their pathways,” he said.

“But you could just tell it F=ma and be done with it.”

The more consequential failures show up in the data itself. A standard trick for training vision systems is data augmentation: rotate the dog photo slightly, and now you have two dog photos. Try that with inertial measurement data from a human body, and you eventually produce a human standing upside down, cheerfully defying gravity.

That is Golding’s version of physical intelligence: letting the model learn from data but refusing to let it invent a body that can stand upside down against gravity. The approach has roots in physics-informed machine learning, but it’s now colliding with large reasoning models and their welldocumented habit of hallucinating.

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in a real system. His answer: it’s a spectrum, and two variables set your position on it. The shorter the decision time and the larger the consequence, the more deterministic the technology has to be. A robot in a healthcare setting encountering an unexpected hospital bed needs local reasoning. A robot hand trying to catch a slipping vial of blood needs reflexes, not a chain of thought.

This is territory ADI already occupies at the component level.

The company supplies many of the sensors and actuators these systems depend on: IMUs, time-of-flight depth sensors, magnetic turn sensors, and actuators. Golding argues that making the parts confers an advantage in making them intelligent.

“Our knowledge of physics is far superior to public knowledge, because we make the parts,” he said. “We know how they work in practice.”

That knowledge gets embedded directly into the algorithms sitting closest to the sensor. The architecture that keeps falling out of this, in humanoids and elsewhere, is a hierarchy Golding describes as systems 0, 1, and 2. System 0 sits closest to the hardware: real-time, physically constrained, deterministic. System 1 handles sensor fusion, the machine equivalent of balancing without thinking about it. System 2 does the slow, contextual planning, where probabilistic reasoning is tolerable because mistakes are recoverable. His example: a pet food company asked ADI to help curate a dataset for humanoids lifting 20 kg bags whose center of mass shifts midlift. Coordinating two hands to save the bag is system 1. Deciding how to cross the factory safely is system 2. Nobody’s brain needs to say “don’t drop the bag.”

The same pattern shows up far from robotics. In data center health monitoring, classical statistical processing runs locally on the board, watching for anomalies. Aggregation happens one level up. Only anomalies that cannot be resolved locally get

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escalated to a reasoning model that can pull historical diagnostics and board manuals into context before deciding whether a GPU board is about to fail. In Golding’s architecture, probabilistic inference diffuses upward through the stack, while determinism concentrates at the bottom. ADI is prototyping these architectures in an internal reasoning lab. And because its parts are already fielded by the millions in everything from data centers to 5G phased array antennas, the same approach extends to telemetry, for system-level diagnostics and predictive maintenance.

Beyond the datasheet The part of the conversation that should make design engineers sit up came at the end. Golding argues that within roughly three years, AI will be AWad25printready.pdf

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making many system-level partitioning decisions, which means components need to be “AI legible.” Customers are increasingly building world models of their systems, predictive digital twins that know the current state and can forecast the next one. A part that ships as silicon plus a datasheet doesn’t plug into that. A part that ships with its own model does.

Whether datasheets evolve or are supplemented by richer models remains to be seen. Golding’s point is that components will need to arrive with more than silicon and a PDF. As AI-driven design tools build predictive models of entire systems, they will need machine-readable representations of the parts inside them. While he wouldn’t speculate on future plans, he was clear that the shift toward AI-readable models is already

underway: “This is real stuff that we’re building. It’s not slideware.”

Golding’s point is that components will need to arrive with more than silicon and a PDF. As AI-driven design tools build predictive models of entire systems, they will need machinereadable representations of the parts inside them. DW

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A Supplement to Design World • September 2026

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The da Vinci 5 surgical system combines human expertise with robotic motion control for precise procedures.

Intuitive Surgical

BRIANNA WESSLING • THE ROBOT REPORT

TO PERFORM COMMON CARDIAC SURGERY

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oronary artery bypass grafting, or CABG, is the most common type of cardiac surgery in the world.

Despite this, and the heavily invasive nature of the surgery, only 1% of these procedures are performed with the help of robots.

At the El Camino Health Heart and Vascular Institute (HVI), surgeons are now performing CABG with Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci robotic system. The first procedure was performed by Dr. Nels Carroll, a surgeon with extensive experience in robotic cardiac techniques and one of only a few surgeons in the Bay Area offering this robotic-assisted bypass capability.

“Think of the heart as the engine that’s pumping the blood and delivering energy and oxygen to the body. Basically, that engine has its own fuel lines, those are the arteries on the surface of the heart,” Carroll told The Robot Report.

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“They’re providing the fuel to keep that engine pumping, and it’s very common for people to develop disease in those fuel lines. Bypass surgery is just us putting on new fuel lines.”

Carroll highlighted that the surgery itself is straightforward. The tricky part is reaching the heart in the first place.

“The most challenging thing for the patient is that, historically, we have to cut their chest open,” said Carroll. “We have to divide the sternum and spread it to the side.”

“Doing the same thing robotically means that instead of making that big incision and instead of cutting that bone and opening all that space, we just put little incisions between the ribs,” he added. “We don’t cut any bone, and we don’t cut any major muscle groups.”

The robotic instruments and cameras can fit inside the small incisions, which allows surgeons to perform the same procedure.

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Smaller incisions mean faster recovery for patients The biggest impact robotic surgery has on bypass surgery patients is in the recovery time, Carroll said.

“It’s so much easier to recover from small incisions between the ribs than it is from a conventional surgery, where the bone is put back together with stainless steel wires,” he said. “The big difference is how quickly people get back to their daily lives, how much less pain they encounter, and how much less traumatic the experience is for them overall.”

One of these patients is Raul Martin, a 64-year-old man who walked three to five miles a day and doing resistance training.

One Sunday, he was in the gym exercising when he felt his heart racing. He checked his smartwatch.

“It was saying 200. I know that that's obviously not right,” Martin recalled.

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The most common approach to a CABG involves the surgeon opening the chest by dividing the breastbone to reach the heart.

El Camino Health Heart and Vascular Institute

through the building. I grabbed him and he called the EMTs.” Martin was taken to El Camino Health, where he eventually underwent a robotic bypass procedure. The day after his surgery, Martin was up and walking the halls. He said he felt fine. And a couple of days later, he went home and is now back to his usual routine.

Robotics takes the pressure off surgeons Using a surgical robot isn't just better for the patient; it can also take away some of the physical strain of the job for surgeons.

“The ergonomics of the robotic platform is dramatically different,” Carroll said. “A busy day of robotic heart surgery versus a busy day of conventional heart surgery, at the end of the day, your back’s not as achy, your neck’s not sore, and you still have a little bit of energy to get to the gym and have some other balance in your life.”

And this change isn't just physical.

Being able to provide better outcomes with easier recovery for patients takes off some of the mental load for surgeons.

This means they could suffer less from burnout.

For new surgeons, surgical systems typically offer a virtual simulation environment, which makes an ideal training space. During procedures, a clear view of the patient and the work the surgeon is doing also helps.

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“Heart surgery is a team sport,” said Carroll. “There’s a whole group of people who are assisting and helping and facilitating that surgery.”

“When everybody can see beautifully exactly what’s going on, the communication improves,” he explained.

“For a trainee who’s present, that really accelerates their ability to mentally process what they’re going to need to do when they eventually take the reins.”

Why aren't more hospitals using robotics for cardiac procedures?

With such a dramatic change in outcomes, it seems obvious to deploy more surgical robots. So, why are less than 1% of these procedures performed robotically? Carroll said there are a few reasons for this.

“This approach isn’t right for every patient. Some surgeries, we really need that bigger incision,” he said. “We need to have full access to the heart that we wouldn’t have with a less invasive approach.’

In addition, more doctors need to know about this kind of technology. The heart surgeon is certainly not the first doctor a patient would see, so it's important for every doctor to understand robotics is a treatment option, asserted Carroll.

Beyond this, he said there is some hesitation from surgeons when it comes to implementing any new practice.

“Oftentimes, there is the analogy used of a surgeon going into surgery for a complex problem with a sick patient, it’s

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almost like going to battle,” Carroll said. “You don’t want to go to battle with any more question marks than you already have to face.”

“Once you have survived a number of battles, once you’ve had success doing things a certain way, it’s very much part of human nature to want to continue to rely on that,” he noted.

“The flip side of that is potentially falling into the trap of not being able to deviate from a stepwise approach,” added Carroll. “I think that is a very important part of any surgical practice, to rely on the foundations of experience and knowledge and knowing what works, but also incorporating newer technologies and newer techniques.”

How can robotics companies work better with surgeons?

Carroll has been working with surgical robots for more than 10 years. He has had extensive experience with the Intuitive team.

There were times when the Intuitive team would come into the operating room and observe cases, said Carroll.

This gave them the opportunity to talk through the challenges of different clinical scenarios.

“The time when the field is the most fertile for ideas for surgeons, at least in my experience and anecdotally from colleagues, is when you are faced with a problem and you see it and you verbalize it.” Carroll said.

If there's an engineer or a developer in the room, they can see what the surgeon is trying to do, and where the challenges are. These people, who have a completely different background than a surgeon, might have a new idea about how to approach the problem.

“Surgeons never really can succeed in a silo. It’s a community. The heart surgery community is large and complex, but an extremely talented and intelligent group of people,” said Carroll. “The more we interact with each other, the more we learn, the more we push each other to do a better job.” RR www.therobotreport.com

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EV ENGINEERING

Coin cells allow researchers to evaluate a battery chemistry before advancing it to larger cell formats.

MICHELLE FROESE SENIOR EDITOR

COIN CELLS

COIN CELLS WHY TESTING FUTURE EV BATTERIES OFTEN BEGINS WITH

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hen most people think about electric vehicle (EV) battery development, they picture large battery packs, cooling systems, and high-voltage cells destined for production vehicles. In reality, many EV battery technologies begin life in a laboratory coin cell small enough to fit in the palm of a hand.

Before engineers commit time and resources to larger-format cells, modules, and battery packs, they typically evaluate new materials and chemistries using coin cells. The format offers a relatively inexpensive and repeatable way to study how a 40

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battery behaves long before it reaches automotive scale.

“Almost every cell that ends up in a vehicle started as a coin cell on a bench. This is where you learn whether a chemistry is worth pursuing, long before it ever reaches a car,” explains Hang Lau, principal product manager, Thermodynamic Properties, Waters Materials Sciences Division (formerly TA Instruments).

Why start with coin cells?

Developing a new battery chemistry involves evaluating a wide range of variables. Researchers may be testing a

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new cathode material, anode material, electrolyte formulation, separator, or additive package. Building large-format cells for every iteration would be costly and time-consuming.

Coin cells allow engineers to quickly compare different material combinations while minimizing material consumption and manufacturing complexity.

“With coin cells, you can compare different battery chemistries side by side and see which one is actually moving in the right direction,” says Lau. “That kind of controlled comparison is hard to get any other way.” www.evengineeringonline.com

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EV ENGINEERING

A single development program may involve hundreds or even thousands of coin cells before a promising chemistry advances to larger prototypes.

Coin-cell testing is the starting point in other fields too. It shows up in battery energy storage systems (BESS), aerospace, robotics, and consumer electronics.

So, what can be learned from coin cells? Despite their small size, coin cells can reveal a significant amount of information about battery behavior.

Researchers commonly use coin cells to evaluate:

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Capacity and energy-storage performance Charge-discharge efficiency Cycle life and degradation trends Electrochemical behavior Thermal stability Gas generation Early indicators of thermal runaway

These measurements help engineers determine whether a particular chemistry warrants further development.

Thermal characterization is particularly important as battery developers seek to improve safety while increasing energy density. Understanding how a cell behaves under elevated temperatures can help identify potential failure mechanisms long before a design reaches final cell format or vehicle-level testing.

The challenge of scaling results While coin cells are valuable development tools, they do not provide a complete picture of how a battery will perform in an EV.

This coin-cell testing system measures heat flow from experimental EV battery cells, helping researchers identify thermal instability before a chemistry advances to larger automotive cell formats.

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Large-format automotive cells introduce additional challenges related to thermal management, manufacturing consistency, mechanical stresses, current distribution, and cell-to-cell interactions.

Module and pack-level testing remains essential before a battery can be qualified for vehicle use.

“A coin cell will not tell you everything about a finished pack, but the questions you answer at this stage shape every decision that follows,” she shares. “The more you can measure from a single cell, the fewer surprises you meet later.”

As a result, battery development typically follows a progression from coin cells to larger prototype cells, then to modules and eventually full battery packs.

Each stage answers a different set of engineering questions.

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Linking thermal, gas, and electrochemical behavior One area receiving increased attention is the relationship between thermal behavior, gas generation, and electrochemical performance.

Traditionally, engineers relied on multiple instruments and separate experiments to collect these data sets.

New testing platforms are seeking to combine these measurements into a single workflow, allowing researchers to correlate thermal events with electrochemical behavior and evolved gases from the same cell.

The goal is to identify safety concerns and failure mechanisms earlier in the development process, when design changes are less costly and easier to implement.

For EV battery developers, these early insights can help guide material selection, improve safety evaluation, and reduce development risk before a chemistry advances to larger and more expensive cell formats.

The next generation of EV batteries may ultimately power vehicles with hundreds of miles of range, but many of those technologies will begin their journey inside a coin cell only a few centimeters wide.

“The batteries that will carry people hundreds of miles are being shaped right now, at the scale of a coin cell. Get the measurement right there, and that confidence follows the design all the way to the vehicle,” Lau says. EV

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WHY AND HOW EV MAKERS ARE RACING TO GET

cobalt out of their batteries RAKESH KUMAR, PH.D. • CONTRIBUTOR

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ddressing the reliance on cobalt is a central aspect of the ongoing development of lithium-ion batteries for the electric vehicle (EV) market. The cathode is a key battery component that determines energy density, cost, and safety. Nickel-rich cathodes offer the high energy density needed for long-range EVs, but their traditional reliance on cobalt has created technical and supply chain issues.

The push to reduce cobalt is unfolding alongside the growth of cobalt-free lithium iron phosphate batteries, which accounted for more than 55% of global EV battery deployment in 2025, while nickel-rich chemistries remain important where higher energy density is required.

Why is reducing cobalt a priority for EV batteries?

The effort to reduce or eliminate cobalt from EV cathodes is based on economic, geopolitical, and ethical considerations.

As the most costly raw material in the cathode, cobalt’s price volatility creates financial uncertainty for manufacturers.

Approximately 75% of global cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, while much of the refining takes place in China, creating a concentrated supply chain exposed to geopolitical risk and documented human rights issues.

To move away from cobalt without sacrificing performance, the industry has focused on nickel-rich chemistries.

The primary reason is energy density. As shown in Figure 1, while other cobaltfree alternatives like iron-based (LFP) or manganese-based (LMO) cathodes offer advantages in cost and safety, they cannot match the high energy density of nickel-based systems.

The engineering goal is to improve thermal stability and cycle life in nickelrich cathodes, combining high energy with safety and lower cost.

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FIGURE 1. Performance comparison of Ni-based, Fe-based, and Mn-based cathode materials.

ACS Energy Letters

What happens to the cathode’s stability when cobalt is removed?

In layered-oxide cathodes, cobalt provides essential structural and chemical stability. Removing it without compensatory measures leads to rapid degradation through cation mixing, where nickel ions block lithium pathways, microcrack formation from internal stress, and surface instability from parasitic reactions with the electrolyte.

Compositional doping addresses this by introducing elements that replicate cobalt’s stabilizing functions. Key dopants

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include aluminum (Al) for suppressing side reactions, magnesium (Mg) acting as a structural pillar that prevents lattice collapse, and tungsten (W) for long-term stability. One promising composition is NMA, or lithium nickel manganese aluminum oxide.

Compositions like LiNi0.80Mn0.13Al0.07O2 and LiNi0.85Mn0.09Al0.06O2 use a synergistic combination of manganese and aluminum to provide the necessary stability, enabling high energy density in a cobalt-free system.

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EV ENGINEERING

What engineering strategies make cobalt-free cathodes viable?

Beyond chemical composition, the physical engineering of cathode particles and their surfaces is important for mitigating mechanical stress and improving safety.

Conventional cathodes consist of polycrystalline agglomerates, where the grain boundaries serve as initiation sites for microcracks. A strategy to prevent this is synthesizing the cathode as a single crystal.

As illustrated in Figure 2, this approach eliminates grain boundaries entirely, creating a stronger particle with an unobstructed pathway for lithium ions.

Another effective strategy is creating core-shell structures, which feature a high-nickel core for capacity and a more stable, manganese-rich outer shell.

A protective coating provides a further line of defense, isolating the reactive cathode surface from the liquid electrolyte. An ultrathin coating of a material like zirconia, carbon, or LFP acts as a physical barrier that prevents side reactions and improves stability. An LFP coating on an NMC cathode delays thermal runaway from 796 minutes at 147° C to 989 minutes at 153° C. Manufacturing sets its own limits.

Complex particle morphologies, like single crystals or core-shell structures, require precise synthesis control.

Cathode precursors are commonly produced through co-precipitation in large-scale reactors, where maintaining batchto-batch uniformity is the primary scaling challenge.

A high-performance cathode must also be paired with a compatible anode. The increased capacity of nickel-rich cathodes can be limited by traditional graphite anodes, affecting overall cell performance and cycle life. This has prompted research into highercapacity anode materials, such as silicon composites.

However, silicon undergoes significant volume expansion during cycling, which requires specific mitigation strategies.

Removing cobalt compromises cathode stability. To counteract this, an integrated engineering approach combines chemical doping, structural design, and surface coatings. This combination of strategies is essential for realizing the high energy potential of nickel-rich systems in a stable, safe, and commercially viable manner for future EVs. EV

FIGURE 2. The Liion pathways in polycrystalline versus single-crystal NMC cathodes, illustrating the impact of grain boundaries. MDPI

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packaging oem SARAH WYNN SENIOR EDITOR PACKAGING OEM

Coca-Cola bottler installs

for in-house production Sibeg Srl’s Catania facility now houses its first aseptic PET line, integrating aseptic production, secondary packaging, and palletizing for Coca-Cola beverages with Sidel equipment.

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ibeg Srl, a Coca-Cola bottler in Italy, is refreshing its beverage production strategy by moving select products in-house after previously relying on co-packers.

To support this shift, the company worked with French OEM Sidel to install its first aseptic polyethylene terephthalate (PET) production line at its Catania facility, which serves the island of Sicily.

The new production capability adds capacity for ready-to-drink teas and energy drinks at speeds up to 18,000 bottles per hour. This marks Sibeg’s first aseptic PET capability at the site, offering greater control over 46

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how sensitive beverages are produced, validated, and brought to market.

“For aseptic beverage production, product integrity and an extended shelf life are essential requirements,” said Mathieu Stauder, product manager of sensitive lines at Sidel, in an interview with Packaging OEM. The installation integrates aseptic, secondary, and end-of-line packaging into a single operation.

Inside the aseptic PET line The focal point of the line is Sidel’s Aseptic Combi Predis, a dry preform decontamination system that meets

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Sidel’s Aseptic Combi Predis system at Sibeg’s Catania facility ensures dry preform decontamination and aseptic PET beverage production with high throughput and operational flexibility.

Sibeg

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packaging oem operational standards across all stages of beverage production.

“Sibeg’s first-ever aseptic PET line needed to ensure the highest safety standards at all stages of the blowing, filling, and capping process with high throughput, efficiency, operator safety, and regulatory compliance,” said Stauder.

To achieve this, the system maintains hygienic conditions throughout bottle formation and filling by injecting hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) into the preform before it enters the heating stage.

“This results in activation of the H2O2 by the existing preform heating stage, ensuring a high level of decontamination while minimizing the sterile zone and controlling all risk of potential contamination,” Stauder said.

Operators continuously monitor critical production parameters to support sterility and food and beverage safety, regardless of liquid type.

The Combi Predis is also engineered for operational flexibility. Sibeg can run beverage formats on the same equipment and switch between ten different formats without requiring separate dedicated lines.

“Sidel’s Aseptic Combi Predis is built for high operational flexibility with very fast bottle-format changeovers, the ability to run many SKUs on the same machine with limited intervention and filling technology that can handle different beverage types with minimal mechanical change,” said Stauder.

Beyond dry preform decontamination, the Combi Predis reduces water and

Sidel’s EvoFilm Stretch system wraps bottles at ambient conditions, reducing plastic use and saving energy compared to traditional shrinkwrapping.

Sibeg

chemical usage while ensuring product safety without preservatives.

The line uses 100% recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) bottles and passed the first-time aseptic validation protocol according to CocaCola Company standards.

Cutting plastic at the pack level After filling and capping, bottles move to Sidel’s EvoFilm Stretch system for secondary packaging. Stauder explained that the equipment replaces traditional heat-based shrink wrapping and operates at ambient conditions.

“The EvoFilm Stretch lowers plastic use from 26 grams to 6 grams per pack and uses only 10 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy, leading to a 90% energy savings compared to traditional shrink-wrapping solutions,” he said.

Coca-Cola bottles are filled on Sibeg Srl’s first aseptic PET line at its Catania facility in Sicily, installed with Sidel’s Aseptic Combi Predis system for the production of sensitive Sibeg beverages.

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The stretch-wrapping process uses high pre-stretch linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) with a thickness of 10 to 23 microns, allowing automatic sealing and flexible wrapping operations.

“Without shrink tunnels or conveyors, the machine footprint is reduced, making the packaging lines more compact and cost-effective,” said Stauder.

From bottle to pallet Finished packs are handled by Sidel’s PalKombi palletizing system, which automates transfer onto pallets for distribution.

Sibeg also implemented Sidel’s EvoON Flex software to guide operators during bottle changeovers, providing a real-time operational overview and digitalized standard operating procedures.

“The application provides a realtime, consolidated view of all scheduled changeovers across the entire work shift, improving planning and coordination between operators and maintenance teams,” said Stauder, adding that the software enhances operator proficiency and reduces unplanned downtime.

Bringing sensitive beverages under one roof With the aseptic PET line now operating in Catania, Sibeg has centralized production of sensitive beverages under one integrated line.

“The complete aseptic PET line will enable us to diversify into energy drinks and tea production,” said Luca Busi, CEO at Sibeg, in a statement. OEM

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AUTOMATED WAREHOUSE

LOU FARRELL CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

How to tie mobile robots into existing material handling operations I

mplementing autonomous mobile robots, or AMRs, into material handling operations promises unrivaled efficiency gains. However, not all integrations are success stories.

To avoid common integration mistakes, professionals must select the right robots, adopt fleet orchestration software, develop maintenance programs, and create accountability frameworks.

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Which AMRs are safe around workers?

Not all AMRs are collaborative. To work safely alongside humans, AMRs use advanced orchestration software, lidar, and cameras to map their environments and detect obstacles.

Those mobile robots equipped with artificial intelligence, vision systems, and sensor arrays can make split-second decisions based on a wealth of real-time data.

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Unlike fixed-path automated guided vehicles (AGVs), experimental humanoids, or heavy-payload AMRs, these mobile cobots typically have built-in mechanisms to ensure safe operation around human workers.

Setting a maximum speed and adjusting based on curved paths and load weight is recommended to avoid collisions. Failsafe encoders and communication protocols www.automatedwarehouseonline.com

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A failsafe velocity control in action.

Siemens

enable AMRs to adjust their velocity based on their surroundings.

During initial implementations, facilities should also avoid interactions between forklifts and mobile robots by using separate aisles or by establishing traffic rules.

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assessment of existing workflows and ends with deployment. Decisionmakers must evaluate their workflow, define key performance indicators, and calculate the business case.

Technology stack compatibility and facility layout are essential considerations.

One automotive parts supplier recognized the need to automate material handling to meet customer demand. The team lacked workers on the production floor and visibility into product flow.

Forklift drivers had to hand-scan material multiple times at key stages.

This process relied entirely on manual labor, making it susceptible to errors.

Based on the facility’s layout, the AMRs needed to charge 30% of their operational time to keep the cell blockage rate below 2% on average. A low percentage is acceptable, as production areas can manage a small buffer.

However, a large bottleneck would increase the number of empty totes, preventing parts from being produced.

Cost is another major consideration.

Advanced robotics may have a high upfront cost, especially for large-scale, multishift facilities.

But it may only take a handful of robots to automate most, if not all, material handling operations, keeping capital investment costs low.

Selecting solutions with a twoyear payback period is a good rule of thumb. Companies can quickly recoup costs by running operations with multiple shifts at high velocity.

Who is responsible for maintenance?

The service-level agreement (SLA) determines responsibility for maintenance and ongoing support.

Typically, the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) handles individual hardware replacements, while the integrator ensures the functionality and compatibility during installation.

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Software integration with warehouse management systems (WMS) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms is key.

For instance, facilities can use fleet management software for orchestration, oversight, and organization. Depending on the robot’s age and brand, it may not be compatible with the existing materialhandling system or the intended software.

Rather than using in-house teams for software patching and parts repairs, organizations can purchase OEM maintenance support contracts.

Alternatively, they can partner with thirdparty providers that deliver vendor-agnostic repair and information technology services.

Even with robust post-sale support, facilities should still optimize day-to-day operations.

For instance, they can reduce traveling distance to increase robots’ efficiency. This

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The OMRON LD-90 AMRs assisting in stack delivery with precise positioning. OMRON

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includes proximity to charging bases, not just the route between material storage and destinations. How far the robots travel determines everything from throughput to downtime.

Lessons learned from success stories Examining how real companies have successfully integrated AMRs into material handling operations demonstrates their potential impact.

Eliminating manual transport One precision engineering company was struggling with low throughput, physically strained staff, and a high risk of handling errors because employees were spending hours transporting small load carriers by hand.

Sometimes, they had to walk over 9 mi. (14.4 km) and make 50 trips per shift just to move crates between the storage and production areas.

To address this issue, MPA Technology designed a fully integrated solution featuring OMRON LD-90 AMRs, automated shelving and custom stacking units. Employees now simply order materials from their workstations.

The robots dispense small load carriers to a stacker that organizes up to four crates at once, and the robots pick and deliver those The Apex C1500-L, which uses both machine vision and laser SLAM sensors. ForwardX Robotics

stacks. Finished goods are returned through the same process.

Just five LD-90 AMRs cover the 53,819.5-sq.-ft. (5,000-sq.-m) facility, transporting 200 crates daily. Connected to a manufacturing execution platform (MEP), it ensures safe, accurate handling and scalability for future growth.

Achieving high-precision handling IPLUSMOBOT, an intelligent mobile robotics company, supplied a lithium battery manufacturer with a range of mobile robots to meet its stringent input-to-output ratio requirements.

The facility had previously relied on manual labor for loading, unloading, and material transfer, which created bottlenecks and safety concerns. Its unique production environment mixed human and vehicle traffic in narrow aisles, complicating implementation.

A fleet management system calls them so that the Standard AMRs can receive materials. They automatically position and place full racks at the dedicated receiving location. Task execution status updates in real time, so every robot remains synchronized.

Using vision and laser navigation technology, the Omnidirectional Cantilever Forklift AMRs achieve

±5mm docking accuracy in confined aisles just 4 ft. (1.2 m) wide.

For instance, over 10 cartridgehandling robots load, unload, and buffer with ±1mm precision.

Due to this precision, the lithium battery manufacturer can meet its high-frequency material turnover requirements. IPLUSMOBOT estimated that the deployment will save almost $295,150 annually.

Optimizing heavy load transport The Pentair Water Filtration Equipment Factory deployed Apex 1500 Forklift AMRs from ForwardX Robotics throughout its facility, replacing 75% of its human-driven forklift operation. This strategy significantly reduced its reliance on manual labor for heavy load transportation.

The AMRs could safely handle pallets weighing up to 1.5 tons and measuring 5.2 ft. (1.5 m) in length, eliminating the risks of manual handling.

Their task completion rate exceeded 98%, demonstrating high reliability.

By optimizing heavy-load transport routes, they increased materialhandling throughput by 25%.

Key takeaways for manufacturers Automated material handling integration solves critical labor and safety issues, requires deep analysis of facility layout and workflows, and delivers measurable improvements in precision and throughput when the right technology matches the right task.

Decision-makers should consider starting with a small pilot project to ensure success and scalability. AW

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Lou Farrell, a senior editor at Revolutionized, has written on the topics of robotics, computing, and technology for years. He is a contributor to Automated Warehouse and has a great passion for the stories he covers and for writing in general.

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

J&J MedTech’s DePuy Synthes Velys Hip Navigation with AI Assistance software is available on the Velys Hub. Image courtesy of J&J MedTech

Medical robotics and AI advice from a J&J MedTech DePuy Synthes leader

By Jim Hammerand Managing Editor

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ohnson & Johnson MedTech‘s DePuy Synthes just launched its new Velys Hip Navigation with AI Assistance software, which the ortho tech developer says can shave minutes of workflow off hip replacements by automatically identifying landmarks for surgeons and their teams.

DePuy Synthes President of Global Digital, Robotics Surgery and Customer Solutions Janardhan (JR) Ramachandran says his team developed the software-as-a-medicaldevice (SaMD) entirely in-house, taking it from idea to launch in just 1.5 years.

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“Don’t lead with AI,” he says. “... Start with talking to surgeons about real problems and things that would meaningfully change how they think about patient care.”

We asked Ramachandran for advice he could offer to help other device developers find opportunities to innovate with artificial intelligence and succeed in those efforts. The following has been lightly edited for space and clarity.

MDO: There’s a lot of hype around AI, but applying it to medical imaging and robotics seems ideal. Where do you see the most compelling use cases?

Ramachandran: “You’re right, there’s a lot of hype, a lot of gimmicks out there in medtech. We believe AI is poised to

function as a powerful utility in medtech that enhances and amplifies surgical expertise, as opposed to replacing it. AI has to be actionable, practical, and almost invisible intraoperatively. It has to operate and provide surgeons what they need.

“The first use case is decision support, like this particular example where we are automating a repeatable step that doesn’t materially add value, but you have to get it right every time.

The second one is workflow automation, removing repetitive manual steps and how much you can automate so the >> www.designworldonline.com

9/1/26 10:03 AM

surgeon can focus on judgment and patient care.

“And the last one, which I think is the highest order benefit, is personalization. AI can help deliver true personalization, because what we eventually want is to look at a patient as an individual, not as a population statistic, and we want to understand what are they expecting. Do they want to run a marathon, play pickleball two weeks after surgery, or do they want a pain-free survival or just to play with their grandkids and things in their daily life? Depending on that, we understand their morphology, we understand their specific gait patterns, and then we have access to radiology imaging and their labs, training them against endpoints, and now our robotic systems capture data intraoperatively so we have a memory of the case itself. Previously, it all resided within surgeons’ minds and their experience and their feel for

“AI CAN HELP DELIVER TRUE PERSONALIZATION, BECAUSE WHAT WE EVENTUALLY WANT IS TO LOOK AT A PATIENT AS AN INDIVIDUAL, NOT AS A POPULATION STATISTIC, AND WE WANT TO UNDERSTAND WHAT ARE THEY EXPECTING.” surgery. Now we are quantifying it, and with that our goal is how to train models such that we can build digital twins of patients intraoperatively, where you could tell a surgeon there are four options of operating on this patient, and a probability that one option, one alignment gives you the best outcome. Those are things that surgeons really appreciate. As I’ve talked to surgeons, intraoperative guidance and more predictive guidance around personalization is really where we need to be.”

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

How can device developers build trust in AI technology?

Ramachandran: “Don’t lead with AI. AI for its own sake doesn’t mean anything. You have to start with talking to surgeons about real problems and things that would meaningfully change how they think about patient care, how they think about outcomes and workflow and efficiency and so on. And then think about whether a machine learning AI-based solution or a deep learning solution is required.

Could it be a rules-based algorithm, could it be a heuristic? There are a number of approaches to solving a particular problem, and even when you do come up with an AI-based solution, it’s really about bringing the surgeon along on the journey of explainability.

“You need to be able to explain why the algorithm made a certain decision, because sometimes the algorithm validates what a surgeon would have done, and they like that. But sometimes the algorithm will provide an opinion that the surgeon might not have thought of, and it could lead to two different outcomes: The surgeon loses trust immediately, or they ask the question, ‘Why?’ And if you’re able to answer and explain why, and maybe the surgeon overlooked a certain parameter, then the surgeon starts to trust incrementally. As manufacturer, as a developer, as an innovator, we have to make our solutions explainable, and they have to be subservient to surgeon judgment. That’s how you build trust.”

Image courtesy of J&J MedTech

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How can device developers address the risk of deskilling in users who grow reliant on AI? Ramachandran: “Every new generation of surgeons deals with this. Today, younger surgeons are being trained on technology from the get go, and if anything, they’re asking deeper questions. A lot of dogma that existed in surgery is being challenged now that technology is producing data and there’s new forms of evidence coming out. In general, surgeons are getting more skilled. There’s less variability in outcomes, volumes per surgeon are increasing, so that’s definitely a good thing. But to your point around reliance on technology, we think of technology less as autopilot and more navigation or robotic assistance. It keeps a great surgeon great, and it reduces the variability in outcomes for maybe lower volume surgeons in smaller community hospitals or what have you. But the focus on education is paramount.

We train for all eventualities, we train for realworld scenarios, and surgeons are asking for more training, more access to education, rather than less with technology. In the past, learning surgery was a rite of passage of learning through experience and watching through fellowships.

It took years to get a feel for surgery. But now www.designworldonline.com

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we’re able to codify that with some of the data, so I think the learning curve is also improving.”

MEDICAL

Any advice to help other device developers innovate where robotics and AI overlap?

Ramachandran: “There’s a ton of surgeon-led innovators and smaller startups focused on fixing specific parts of the workflow in different procedures. Some things they should be mindful of are to listen first and build second. Don’t jump into the solution itself. Understand the clinical problem, the economic problem, and how do you solve for some of those things. At DePuy Synthes, we look for clinical relevance, meaningful impact to patient outcomes as well as workflow efficiency and other things, and economic value for all stakeholders. Costs are under pressure, site of care is shifting, and

surgeon reimbursement is going down as well, so any new piece of technology that adds cost and/or time is going to be extremely challenging to scale. It has to factor in those extraneous constraints. And the last one is it needs to be scalable as a solution. We want to launch things globally in our top markets, and we want to make as big of an impact as possible across as wide of a patient population as possible. Those are things that they should be mindful of when solving a particular problem.”

DePuy Synthes President of Global Digital, Robotics Surgery and Customer Solutions Janardhan (JR) Ramachandran

Go to wtwh.me/velyship to read more from this interview, including how Depuy Synthes developed Velys software for faster hip replacements.

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AM

Special Section: Digital Manufacturing

THIS IS HOW YOU DO

I

t’s no secret that additive manufacturing (AM) has been gaining ground in defense in recent years, with numerous new machines, materials, and partnerships. From drones to small arms (and for good or for ill), defense use cases for AM are exploding, but there’s a tendency to talk about this sort of progress in generalities rather than specific examples.

Look, I’ve just done it!

One reason is also a persistent headache for marketers in the tech sector: if your product or solution is giving your customers a competitive edge, they’re not likely to want to share their secret sauce. Indeed, for every captivating case study I’ve come across, 58

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there are dozens of others that I can’t talk about without violating someone’s NDA. So, what’s a humble senior editor to do?

Go straight to the source, of course!

I’d seen several recent announcements from major players referencing Beehive Industries, so I reached out to the company to learn more about how it’s using AM to gain an edge in defense manufacturing. I ended up sitting down with Gordie Follin, the company’s Chief Product Officer and an engineer with decades of experience in aerospace.

From GE to Beehive After more than twenty years spent with

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industry titans, including GE Aerospace and Pratt & Whitney, Follin was no stranger to AM at scale. His time with GE included work on what he believes is the most additively enabled FAA-certified aircraft engine: the Catalyst. But FAA certification, as Follin acknowledges, is a recurring challenge for AM in production.

It’s one thing to certify a single-use application on a drone, but certifying a critical part for a manned aircraft is a considerably higher bar to clear. That’s why, when Follin left GE five years ago to join Beehive, defense wasn’t the latter company’s sole focus. The team looked at industrial gas turbines, solid and liquid rockets, even dental and medical devices. But, as Follin tells it,

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M

IAN WRIGHT

SENIOR EDITOR ENGINEERING.COM

FOR

Beehive Industries Chief Product Officer talks drones, additive casting, and the challenge of scaling up.

DEFENSE Evolution of the Frenzy engine, from the first engine (L) to the final design (R) Beehive Industries

the numbers pointed to aerospace and defense as the best option.

“Additive allows you to optimize performance, weight, cost, and schedule,” Follin explains. “Normally, you have to pick two of those four things, but additive allows you to potentially go after all of them without sacrificing the others.” More importantly, if you look at where those trade-offs matter most, aerospace and defense come out on top.

From there, Beehive’s focus narrowed further to unmanned systems, a decision that dramatically simplifies the qualification process and lets the company move at an iterative pace that would be inconceivable in a manned aircraft program. www.designworldonline.com

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From demonstrator to Frenzy As so often happens, Beehive’s flagship product—the Frenzy turbojet engine— wasn’t its first. Initially inspired in part by the X-61 Gremlin, Beehive built several demonstrator engines and tested them, which Follin says not only served as an important learning experience, but also helped the young company gain credibility.

“A lot of startups say they’re going to do stuff, but the truth is that a lot of them don’t,” he explains. “Building that engine on our own and taking it to customers really opened doors for us.”

From those early conversations with customers, Beehive identified a market opportunity in a smaller engine class,

driven by funding through programs such as the Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM) and the Family of Affordable Mass Missiles (FAMM). But while customers expressed enthusiasm for what Beehive was proposing, Follin says there was also concern that the company was too late to compete: “Three years ago, they were saying, ‘We need something in three years but nobody can develop an engine that fast.’ But for the very first engine we built for that customer, we went from a clean sheet to a first engine test in seven months.”

As the engine continued to advance—even performing well at high altitudes where small engines can

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Special Section: Digital Manufacturing

struggle—the defense sector’s interest in Beehive Industries grew commensurately.

Additive manufacturing at Beehive Industries At its inception, Beehive Industries was like many AM job shops: 3D printing parts for other industries on demand. In fact, the company still produces parts for the power generation industry, as well as for others in aerospace and defense. Moreover, while some of those parts are 3D printed directly using powder bed fusion, others are made via additive casting.

Rather than going through the traditional, multi-step wax-pattern process for casting turbine airfoils or fuel nozzles, Beehive 3D prints ceramic molds directly. As a result, Follin says they can deliver those cast parts in a fraction of the time needed for a conventional casting house. The company has also recently added metal pouring capabilities, giving Beehive the ability to make Frenzy engines either via AM or traditional casting, depending on which makes more sense as production scales.

According to Follin, the cast and printed units perform the same; the real differentiator is the unit cost. “Right now, whether we print a turbine or cast a turbine, it costs us about the same,” he explains. “But the reason why it’s internally cost-neutral is because we’re

“At the end of the day, when we compare our engine to a conventionally made alternative, we’re 20-30% more efficient” not paying for any of the ceramic tooling or investment casting; if we were to buy a cast turbine from someone else, that’s going to be much more expensive than printing it ourselves.”

From a design perspective, Beehive has fully embraced design for additive manufacturing (DfAM), with engines built from an additive-first mindset. The result, says Follin, is that Frenzy doesn’t look like a conventional engine. “If we made that engine conventionally, it would probably be 400 parts,” he explains. “Our engine, including every bolt and washer, is like 40 parts. The turbomachinery is five parts, and that would normally be 200.”

In short, Frenzy epitomizes the partconsolidation benefits that AM boosters have been touting for years.

“We have a center frame in the middle of the engine that has the diffuser from the compressor, the combustor case, the combustor liner, the bearing housings, the stage-one nozzle for the turbine, the fuel nozzles, and the fuel manifold,” Follin says. “All this is printed into this one part, which you could never

Challenges and the China question Beehive Industries has been growing rapidly, hitting numerous important milestones in the last few years. While that’s undoubtedly a good thing for the company, it can also create novel challenges, the most significant of which is scaling. From people to facilities to production rates, a growing business needs to be able to scale up smoothly or risk becoming bogged down in bureaucracy and technical debt. One of the ways Beehive prepared for this was through what Follin calls manufacturing demonstrations, in which Beehive

Test firing the Frenzy engine.

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make conventionally. It’s a beautiful part.

If you’re an engineering geek, you’d say it should be in MoMA one day.”

What’s more, Beehive’s experience with AM means that the company’s engineers understand where and how to make trade-offs in operating efficiency.

For example, rather than chasing efficiency by reducing the surface roughness of printed airfoils, Frenzy gets its efficiency by eliminating leakage paths or using more aerodynamic designs.

Of course, that’s not to say that AM has replaced machining entirely at Beehive. In cases where tolerances are extremely tight or stresses are extremely high—such as turbine blade tips or shaft interfaces, respectively—machining is still the best option. Follin is adamant, however, that printing a part to near net shape and then machining the whole thing to finish it is not the way to go.

This is another reason Beehive’s focus on small engines for one-way trips pairs well with AM: those engines don’t need the same level of efficiency as engines that fly for thousands of hours. For this application, the gains from AM are impressive: “At the end of the day, when we compare our engine to a conventionally made alternative, we’re 20-30% more efficient,” says Follin.

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The Frenzy turbojet engine.

Beehive Industries

Material Solutions for

3D Printing, Assembly, and Design

practiced printing a lot of engines in a limited amount of time—just one or two weeks—to prepare for the planned production ramp.

And now the real scaling is starting: Beehive expects to make hundreds of engines this year, several thousand in 2027, and perhaps as many as 10,000 the year after that. “We’re shipping multiple engines per day at this point,” Follin says.

On the people front, Beehive Industries is looking for engineers with industry experience rather than those fresh out of school. “Generally, the people we hire are very strong in additive manufacturing, jet engines, or both,” Follin explains. That means drawing talent not only from aviation but also the space industry, industrial gas turbines, and other fields that nurture additive expertise.

“With additive, the line between manufacturing and engineering is essentially zero,” Follin says. That’s one of the reasons the company involves machinists in its design reviews: to avoid falling into the trap of designing parts that can’t actually be made.

One last question I had to ask was about China. I’ve had a theory for a while now that the growth of AM in defense is being driven, at least in part, by the pressure of competition from Chinese additive OEMs, such as BLT and Farsoon. I asked Follin directly www.designworldonline.com

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whether Beehive Industries would ever consider using a BLT or Farsoon printer, and his answer was unequivocal: “For us, the question is less about the technical capability of the printer and more about data security. We work on military applications, so we will continue to use components manufactured in the United States or allied countries. There are ways information can leak when someone is servicing your printer, so we’re very careful about that. We won’t consider Chinese printers at this point because of what we’re working on. If we were printing jewelry, maybe that would be fine, but we’re not. The application shapes our process as much as anything.”

AM for defense done right It’s hard to imagine a better example of what AM can do for defense than Beehive Industries. From its design process to its products to its approach to production, this is a company with 3D printing encoded in its DNA. Indeed, I’d go so far as to say that Beehive Industries wouldn’t exist in its current form without the enablement of additive technologies. If you’re wondering what the future of manufacturing in the defense sector more generally looks like, this is it. DW

SEPTEMBER 2026

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9/2/26 8:45 AM

Technical Thinking

By Mark Jones

Robotic muscles, legs, and ... wheels I’ve mused in the past that there is a natural-is-better bias that is misplaced. If nature got everything right, cars would have legs. Planes would have flapping wings, boats oscillating tails. The wheel, unknown in nature, is an engineering triumph. Two famous, albeit fictional, robots show legs are better than wheels for certain applications, but not all.

R2-D2 and C-3PO are imaginary but George Lucas was prescient. His future has robots of different forms serving different functions.

R2-D2 is essentially a mobile utility platform on wheels. He is a task-specific machine, a highly advanced Roomba or warehouse robot. Cheap, efficient, reliable in their lane — and useless outside it.

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C-3PO doesn’t do a task; his job is to interface with humans. Protocol, translation, etiquette, all not useful work. He is deliberately inefficient as a machine because he functions in the human world. We’re now seeing more examples of legged robots, both quadrupedal and bipedal. George Lucas got it right: use wheels when the task is the task and build legs and arms when the environment is the constraint. Stairs, narrow aisles, an extension cord on the floor, all give wheels fits but are easily negotiated by legs. Wheels require adapting the environment to accommodate them.

Legs adapt to the environment. The cost of building robots to adapt to our environment is proving to be less than the cost of fully adapting our environment to be wheel friendly.

We’re in the midst of a legged robot frenzy. Robot brains and sensors are a large part of the reason. Technology for how to craft the bodies continues to evolve. Some recent reporting out of MIT advances claims they will better enable humanoid robots by mimicking the action of muscles — a new example of claiming nature’s way is the better way. Two well-known things are combined to make an “electrofluidic fiber muscle.”

An electrohydrodynamic fiber pump drives a McKibben actuator. The pump is an elastomeric tube embedded with helical electrodes. Fill the tube with the right fluid and apply the right voltage and magic happens. Pressure

SEPTEMBER 2026

is generated silently and without moving parts. The pressure causes the elastomeric tubing to swell inside a braided sleeve. As the diameter of the tubing increases, the braid contracts. The MIT system is sealed, a closed loop. Unlike past braidedsleeve pneumatic muscles, there is no extra equipment and no noise. It is also pretty strong. Power density is comparable to skeletal muscles at 50 watts per kilogram, with a response time of 0.3 seconds.

Some limitations are glossed over. The pump uses 3M Novec 7100 as the working fluid. That is methoxynonafluorobutane, a PFAS. Not immediately damning, but 3M ceased production of all fluorofluids over PFAS concerns. The pump also operates at kilovolts. High voltage is always a concern. The comparisons done are to muscles, not motors.

The paper doesn’t really make the superior to motors claims; that is in other reporting. Motors can deliver over 1 kW/kg, well superior to the fiber motor. There is also elastomer fatigue, something that plagues all McKibben actuators. Dielectric fluid breakdown due to the high voltage is also problematic. None are show-stoppers, but I might pause shaking hands knowing a robot hand operates at 8 kV. I’m left admiring the creativity of the MIT researchers but unsure this is the revolution some are claiming.

Legs aren’t always better than wheels — and muscles aren’t always better than motors. DW

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9/2/26 8:46 AM

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