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With the general audience preferring to engage in the search for anthropomorphization, the popularity of biped and quadruped robots has been growing. At the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, researchers have innovated a robotic system that they call the OmniWheg—a robotic system that adapts its configuration based on the surrounding environment that it is navigating. They introduced this robot in a paper in the IEEE IROS 2022, and pre-published it on arVix. OmniWheg has its origins in an updated version of whegs, which was a mechanism with a design to transform the wings or wheels of a robot into legs.
Although the researchers would have liked to make the robot capable of going everywhere they go, they found the cost of legs to be very high. While evolution has provided humans and animals with legs, the researchers found that a robot with legs would be highly energy inefficient. While legs could make the robot more human or animal-like, they would not be able to complete tasks quickly and efficiently. Therefore, rather than develop a robot with a single mechanism for locomotion, the team proceeded to create a system that switched between various mechanisms.
The team found that about 95% of the environments at homes and workplaces are flat, while the rest are uneven terrains that require transitioning. Therefore, they went on to develop a robot that performs with a high-efficiency wheel-like arrangement for 95% of the cases, specifically transforming to the lower-efficiency mechanism for the remaining 5%.
The researchers, therefore, created a wheel that changed its configuration for climbing stairs or for circumventing small obstacles. For this, they utilized the concept of whegs, wing-legs, or wheel-legs, which is popular in the field of robotics.
In the past few years, the team developed and tested several wheel-leg systems. However, most of them were not successful, as the left and right sides of the wheel-leg system would not coordinate well or align properly when the robot tried climbing stairs.
Finally, the team could solve the coordination issues by using an omnidirectional wheel. This enabled the robot to align on-the-fly, but without rotating its body. Therefore, the robot can move forward, backward, and sideways at high efficiency, and remain in a stable position without expending any energy. At the same time, the robot can also climb stairs swiftly, when necessary.
For correct operation, the wheg system that the team developed requires a servo motor to be added to each wheel and operated with a simple algorithm. As the design is straightforward and basic, any other team can easily replicate it.
According to the researchers, the system has abundant advantages with very few drawbacks. The team feels it can pose a threat to the legged robots, and any robotic application can adopt this design.
The team has evaluated their OmniWheg robot system on a multitude of real-world indoor scenarios. This includes climbing steps of various heights, circumventing obstacles, and moving/turning omnidirectionally. They found the results to be highly promising, and the wheel-leg robot could successfully navigate the common obstacles quite flexibly and efficiently.
Engineers have been using additive manufacturing for prototyping for about 30 years now and are also using it for production. However, the biggest value addition from additive manufacturing comes from producing parts that other traditional manufacturing methods find difficult.
Fabricators use additive manufacturing as a valuable and important solution for producing parts such as those including complex design features like internal geometries and cavities that are impossible to achieve by regular machining. Additive manufacturing is helpful in producing structural elements that are too cumbersome or difficult to generate effectively by conventional means.
At present, engineers use 3D printers for printing large parts quickly. These parts may have resolutions around 50 µm and tolerances around 100 µm. However, sometimes, they also need to produce parts with sub-micron resolutions that are smaller than 5 um. Therefore, they needed a system for printing micro-sized parts at a reasonably high print speed.
Smaller parts require a more precise production process. For instance, cell phones and tablets, microfluidic devices for medical pumps, cardiovascular stents, MEMS, industrial sensors, and edge technology components require connectors with high resolution and accuracy. Most standard additive manufacturing machines cannot provide the resolution necessary for micro-sized parts.
BMF or Boston Micro Fabrication designs and manufactures the PµSL or Projection Micro Stereolithography technology-based printers. Using PµSL printers, it is possible to create 3D printed parts with 2 µm resolution at ±10 um scales. These 3D printers incorporate the benefits of both the SLA or stereolithography technologies and the DLP or digital light processing technologies.
Using a flash of ultraviolet light at microscale resolutions, these PµSL printers cause a rapid photopolymerization of an entire layer of resin. This takes place at ultra-high precision, accuracy, and resolution, not possible to achieve with other technologies.
For faster processing, the PµSL technology supports continuous exposure. Other design elements allow additional benefits to the user. For instance, in printers using the standard SLA technology, the bottom-up build method requires a support structure to hold the part to the base, while also supporting the overhanging structures. Conventional SLA systems can typically achieve resolutions of 50 µm, an overall tolerance of ±100 µm, and a minimum feature size of 150 µm. Similarly, standard DLP systems using a similar bottom-up build structure offer 25-50 µm resolution, an overall tolerance of ±75 µm, and a minimum feature size of 50-100 µm.
On the other hand, the PµSL uses a top-down build, thereby minimizing the need for a support structure. It also provides a way to reduce damage while removing bubbles with a transparent membrane. Comparatively, PµSL systems offer resolution down to 2 µm, dimensional tolerances as high as ±10 µm, and minimum feature sizes of 10 µm.
BMF provides this type of quality by properly employing every system component. This includes the resolution of the optics, controlling the exposure and resulting curing, the precision of mechanical components, and the interaction between parts and required support structures. It also depends on the ability to control tolerances across the build and the overall size of the part. Moreover, working with such diverse micro parts requires choosing the right material characteristics.
Switches and latches based on the Hall effect compare magnetic fields. More correctly, they compare the B-field, or the magnetic flux density with a pre-specified threshold, giving out the comparison result as a single-bit digital value. It is possible to have four categories of digital or on/off Hall sensors—unipolar switches, omnipolar switches, bipolar switches, and latches.
Each of the above switches/latches has a unique transfer function. However, this depends on an important concept—the polarity of the magnetic flux density. The polarity of the B-field makes the Hall effect devices directional. Moreover, it is sensitive only to that component of the magnetic flux density that happens to be along its sensitivity axis.
When a component of the magnetic field applied to a device is in the direction of its sensitivity axis, the magnetic flux density is positive. However, if the component is in the opposite direction of the sensitivity axis, the polarity of the -field is negative at the sensor.
Hall sensor manufacturers follow another convention for the B-field polarity. They consider the magnetic field from the south pole of a magnet as positive, while that from the north pole, as negative. They base their assumption on the branded face of the sensor facing the magnet. The branded face of the Hall sensor is the front surface bearing the device part number.
Therefore, for a sensor with a SOT23 package, the sensitivity axis is perpendicular to the PCB. Whereas for a sensor with a TO-92 package, the sensitivity axis will be parallel to the PCB, provided the sensor is upright after soldering.
A unipolar switch has its thresholds in the positive region of the B-field axis. Its output state changes only when the south pole of a magnet comes near it. Bringing the north pole or a negative field close to the sensor produces no effect, hence the name unipolar.
When the sensor is off, its output is logic high. Gradually bringing a south-pole closer to the sensor causes the device to switch to a logic low as the magnetic field crosses its threshold. The opposite happens when the south pole gradually moves away from the sensor. However, as the threshold of switching for a decreasing magnetic field is different from the threshold of switching for an increasing magnetic field, the device shows a hysteresis effect. Manufacturers create this hysteresis deliberately to allow the sensor to avoid jitter.
An omnipolar switch responds to both—a strong positive field and a strong negative field. As soon as the magnitude of the magnetic field crosses the sensor’s threshold, it changes state. With omnipolar switches, the magnitude of the operating point is the same irrespective of the polarity of the B-field. However, the magnitude of the release point is different from the operating point, but the same for both polarities. Hence, the omnipolar switch also has a hysteresis effect.
A latch device turns on by an adequately large positive field but turns off only by an adequately large negative field. A bipolar switch behaves as a latch device, but its exact threshold values may change from device to device.
With changing vehicle technology, the expectations of drivers and passengers are also undergoing a sea change. They expect a quieter in-cabin atmosphere and an escape from the noise and pollution from the road. Road Noise Cancellation or RNC sensors from Molex offer a new experience for both automotive manufacturers and users. These sensors are lightweight, inexpensive, and use an innovative compact technique of combating road noise.
With growing environmental concerns, electric and hybrid vehicles are causing a greater impact on the automotive market. As these vehicles are quieter than their counterparts with combustion engines, their occupants indicate they perceive a higher level of road noise. The road surface transmits a low-frequency broadband sound that creates a hypnotic humming road noise, through the tires, the suspension, and various body components, into the vehicle. The absence of a combustion engine makes the road noise more perceptible in electric vehicles.
Reducing this noise using sound-dampening materials can be expensive and add to the vehicle’s weight. Early attempts to cancel the road noise actively used complex wire harnesses, while the material they used was less efficient and not as economical as users desire. Moreover, sensors and sound-dampening systems in automotive applications are vulnerable to several harsh environmental factors, including dust, rocks, and water, which can easily damage them.
RNC sensors from Molex are pioneering a newer trend in the luxury category of electric vehicles. The sensing element utilizes the A2B technology that captures sound waves. The system reduces noise from the road that a combustion engine would typically mask.
The A2B audio bus technology minimizes the time the sensors take between receiving the excitation vibrations and generating the processing signal. That means noise cancellation is more efficient. In addition, the sensors can measure the road noise at a slower speed, which allows placing them farther away from the source of the sound. The technology also provides more network data channels.
RNC sensors typically capture sound waves from the vibrations of the vehicle chassis. After detecting the sound waves, it transfers them to the processing unit. This generates a cancellation wave and transmits it to the inside of the vehicle as it travels on the road. The sensors use the A2B audio bus technology by Analog Devices and are daisy-chained to each other. This has the advantage of eliminating the home-run wire harnessing or star-pattern wiring and the use of sound-dampening materials that earlier systems used.
Moles has designed the casings for the sensors to anticipate the dust and water of the harsh automotive environment, for which they carry an IP6K9K rating for the enclosure for protecting the system. Molex also offers their space-saving sealed Mini50 Connector interface. They also offer various mechanical housing configurations for orienting the sensing element to mount them perpendicular to or parallel to the ground. This allows the use of a variety of terminal sizes and connector orientations.
RNC sensors are a low-cost technology for capturing vibration energy from vehicle suspension for optimal cancellation, compared to other noise-cancellation systems. It is possible to configure them in groups of 4 to 8 sensors, depending on the need.
The interactive touchscreen, being an outstandingly adaptable technology, is a common feature in almost all settings. This includes manufacturing, healthcare, restaurants, movie theaters, shops, railway stations, and even in outer space. People use interactive touchscreens universally for the simple reason that they make life easier. In any industry, interactive touchscreens allow people to do their job better and more quickly.
In the age of digital transformation, the above features are essential. The trend in industries all over is to optimize workflows with technology. More stakeholders value convenience and speed now. Although touchscreens find universal applications, system integrators and their vendors of integrated software uphold their versatility by finding newer uses for them. That means a bright future lies ahead for interactive touchscreens. Moreover, manufacturers are integrating them with future technologies like artificial intelligence, voice recognition, and computer vision.
With a change in customer preference, businesses can respond by using touchscreens. For instance, theaters that have been in business for a long time, are now adapting to new customer expectations of greater convenience. Customers decide on remaining at a site and purchasing, depending on whether the ordering process is convenient for them.
At times, when customers are facing a busy night, or they are running late, they may decide to forego buying candy and popcorn. This represents a substantial loss for the theater since they make huge profits from concessions.
Therefore, theaters are setting up self-service concession and ticketing kiosks based on interactive touchscreens. Any moviegoer can now buy their tickets and concessions as soon as they enter the theater, as many kiosks are available at the entrance in the lobby. Each kiosk has the capability to serve up to 350 customers every day.
This has resulted in a substantial improvement across the board. Customers are more satisfied now that waiting time has come down, and concession sales are booming.
Touchscreens are available in diverse types. For instance, they may be huge 65-inch large-format displays or tiny handheld models the size of a smartphone. Manufacturers are offering additional features to make them more versatile and attractive.
For instance, touchscreens are available with peripherals that the user can customize. They have a choice of peripherals ranging from biometric scanners, status lights, RFID and NFC readers, to webcams, barcode scanners, and so many more. Manufacturers often enhance the basic modularity of touchscreens with computing devices for control over complex situations. For instance, the integrated software in a touchscreen offers a point-of-sale application supporting a number of different peripherals with custom configurations.
Interactive touchscreens are evolving fast. Stand-alone touchscreens are transforming self-service applications. Identification of products using computer vision is speeding up the customer’s intentions of purchase by speeding up at self-checkouts. This integration of technologies is benefitting both, the businesses and the customers. While customers prefer to make their own choices, they receive help from the combination of computer vision, voice recognition, touch facility, and artificial intelligence. All this allows the user to drive the interaction.
By putting the control back where it belongs—in the customer’s hands—the future of interactive touchscreen is moving towards fulfilling its original purpose.
Although soldering electronic components in place is a complex activity, most people involved with the soldering process do not realize it. Complicated chemical and thermal processes occur within a very small space when soldering. To make a good solder joint, it is necessary to follow a few basic rules.
Apart from just making good electrical contacts, solder joints should also be mechanically strong and must not oxidize. Additionally, there should not be chemical residues in the joint. Usually, chemical residues come from flux, which can corrode plastic and metallic surfaces both.
Manufacturers offer solder in three categories—consumer, industrial, and high-end. The automotive and health industry makes use of the third category. Consumer and industrial grades are more common for manual, automated, and other construction purposes.
For several years, the standard was the leaded solder. With a relatively low melting point of around 183 °C, leaded solder has good flow and wetting characteristics. For proper melting and formation of a good solder joint, the recommended temperature at the tip of a soldering iron is 120 °C above the alloy’s melting temperature. This corresponds to a tip temperature of about 300 °C.
Manufacturers provide flux inside the hollow of the solder wire. The flux helps to dissolve oxides of the metals at the solder joint. General purpose leaded solder is typically an alloy of tin and lead in the ratio 63:37. Typically, the tin in the alloy amalgamates with the metal (typically copper), producing an alloy of the two metals, as an intermetallic diffusion zone. This helps to form a good solder joint, well-formed, mechanically strong, and durable.
However, an ideal solder joint does not happen in all cases. Sometimes, the solder forms a cold solder joint. Reasons for the formation of a cold solder joint are the presence of highly oxidized metals and dirt, inadequate heating, or fast cooling after the melting process. Inadequate wetting is common in cold solder joints, leading to easy detachment of components.
It is easy to recognize a cold solder joint with leaded solder. The joint has a dull matte surface against a shiny, glossy surface of a good solder joint. With lead-free solder, this is no longer the case. Newer alloys of lead-free solders usually form a matte surface. However, this depends on the specific composition, and it remains matte whether the solder is establishing a good or a cold joint.
New lead-free solders are RoHS compliant, meaning they do not contain certain hazardous substances, as specified by the EU Directive and the Restriction of Hazardous Substances.
The lead content in lead-free solder cannot cross a 0.1% limit. The intention is to prevent the operators from inhaling toxic vapors. Earlier, the use of suitable extraction systems prevented the risk of such inhalation, provided they were in actual use.
The absence of lead in lead-free solders has resulted in an increase in their melting point. The presence of about 95% tin raises the melting point of the alloy from ~217 °C to ~227 °C. This also changes the flow characteristics. Higher temperatures mean the actual soldering time must be small to prevent damage to the components.
The industrial setup is seeing a significant increase in the amount of autonomous machinery with Industry 4.0. Not only are these machines providing human-like thinking capabilities, they are also revolutionizing the industry with their utmost precision and efficiency of operation. Edge sensors are an integral part of the industrial automation ecosystem. The edge sensors collect surrounding and environmental signals, sending them to edge data centers for monitoring and control of various parameters that affect operations. These sensors generate vast amounts of data that require monitoring for the identification of patterns while extracting important insights for further optimization.
With AI or Artificial Intelligence, ML or Machine Learning, and BDA or Big Data Analysis forming the base of Industry 4.0, the industry is treating data as the new gold. These tools process the data generated by edge sensors for efficiently managing and analyzing extensive processes. Enterprises use these tools to obtain insights into the working of processes, for recognizing patterns and looking for events associated with the industrial operation. The analysis helps with the further creation of algorithms that help in the optimization of machines and monitoring devices.
However, large computational power is necessary for processing the data that the sensors produce. The industry resorts to cloud computing, as data processing with the symbiotic support of the cloud, reduces the necessary investments. But this comes at the cost of higher bandwidth requirements and increased latency. On the other hand, applications like computational healthcare and self-driving cars require a faster response. Edge computing easily fills such gaps.
For the computation of data and remote monitoring, the Internet of Things happens to be a complete ecosystem of supporting devices and connected sensors. The cloud processes the enormous amounts of data the system generates. The cloud is simply huge data centers working round the clock, handling extensive amounts of data while being in connection with the internet.
The location of most of these data centers is in remote areas, as they need massive areas of land and cheap power to operate. This increases the bandwidth requirement and latency. Engineers are trying to solve this issue by placing smaller data centers close to the edge sensors, actuators, motors, etc.
Industries also use IoT to share data through unified analytic platforms. Industries usually deploy similar kinds of machinery, but use them in varied conditions of environments and load conditions. This generates various types of data, which when industries share them, can help build a robust ecosystem.
Companies can optimize their products based on shared local consumer data. This optimization can be in the hardware or in the software. Industries frequently conduct software optimization through the internet, while hardware optimization involves generating newer editions of the product. Collecting user data typically involves privacy and security issues. With edge computing, proper handling of local and distributed storage of data can help prevent huge tech giants from accumulating large amounts of private data. However, this makes data more prone to attacks from cyber-crooks.
Engineers typically collect and process the data collected from the edge sensors near the sensor itself. Sometimes, they transfer the data to centralized data centers or localized edge data centers for adding value.
The next-generation display technology is coming up with high-resolution reflective displays. These displays come with motion image capability along with a broad color capability. The reflective displays substantially reduce power consumption, allowing the realization of newer display applications, such as digital textbooks and smartwatches.
E-book applications have been widely using EPD or electrophoretic displays for the past few years. EPDs are low-power displays that form images by the electronic rearrangement of charged pigment particles. However, EPDs are of relatively low reflectivity, as their optical diffusion is essentially Lambertian. Avoiding further reduction in display reflectivity, therefore, requires using narrow color gamut filters, which impacts the display properties negatively.
The use of reflective color liquid crystal displays overcomes this issue of EPDs. Reflective LCDs use a diffusion film and a mirror electrode to diffuse light in its direction of travel. The design of the display system requires a suppression of the chromaticity of the optical components. This establishes a method of controlling the optical diffusion of the reflected light. The net result is a display with high reflectivity and a wide color gamut. This arrangement makes the display optically similar to the white paper.
Sharp makes this low-power, high-resolution reflective display with the technical name IGZO. They offer full color with high-resolution displays, and because of their reflective nature, they are sunlight readable. In fact, their exceptionally high resolution makes them comparable in performance to TFT displays.
Sharp uses unprecedented circuit thinning and transistor miniaturization, leading to a high electron mobility rate. Their design raises the light transmission of each pixel, thereby achieving nearly twice the resolution typically offered by a display of the same transmittance.
IGZO displays achieve power consumption reduction to the order of one-fifth to one-tenth that of conventional displays. This helps to preserve a longer product battery life. Sharp achieves improved pixel performance in their IGZO displays by utilizing a Pause Driving Method that capitalizes on high OFF resistance.
The trend in the electronics industry is towards increasingly thinner and lighter finished products. The IGZO reflective technology meets this demand exceedingly well. This makes IGZO displays ideal for handheld battery-powered products that need full-color, high-resolution displays that perform well in bright outdoor environments. Additionally, the elimination of the backlight opens up the design to a whole new world of possibilities.
The Sharp IGZO reflective displays offer several advantages. The major advantage is they do not require a backlight as they work in a reflective mode, resulting in ultra-low power consumption. The reflective electrode structure results in the displays offering high outdoor readability, with full-color moving images in high contrast. A special design effort from Sharp has resulted in these displays being thin and lightweight. The slim, low-power reflective design enables product design to be made compact.
The IGZO displays support a wide operating temperature range, extending from -20 C to +70 C. Corresponding storage temperatures extend from -30 C to +80 C.
The higher electron mobility of IGZO displays is about 20-50 times faster than those of amorphous silicon displays. This enables them to perform at higher resolution at the same or lower power consumption, as compared to amorphous silicon displays.
The healthcare industry has always had a longstanding relationship with soft robotics. Soft robots are increasingly making their presence felt by assisting physicians in surgical procedures and turning major surgeries into minimally invasive procedures. With more physicians using soft robots that can feel and respond to stimuli, they can be substantially more precise, thereby posing a vastly lower risk of damaging sensitive organs and soft tissues with the wrong amounts of pressure.
Soft robots are more responsive to various stimuli, making them substantially more delicate and refined grippers for machines. They allow researchers to pick up delicate specimens deep underwater, or make complicated repairs outside the ISS. It is essential to have robots with dexterous and easy-to-control extremities. Their pressure-sensitive grippers can detect if they are holding a soft squid or a tiny metal part. They can adjust their grip accordingly, thereby preventing dangerous and time-consuming mistakes.
However, while emulating the sense of touch, researchers have had limited success with tactile-sensing technology, especially when fine-tuning dexterity. This is now changing with researchers from the University of Bristol creating the bionic sense of touch. Researchers from the Department of Engineering Maths are using 3-D printed papillae mesh on the under-surface of a compliant skin.
Scientists, in an empirical study, have made substantial comparisons of the performance of a bionic fingertip against neural recordings made of the sense of human touch. Not only have they published their findings in a Journal of the Royal Society Interface, they have also described the creation of an artificial biometric tactile sensor, which they call the TechTip. Their creation can behave dynamically just like human skin does, and provide sensory responses. In simple words, the artificial fingertip mimics human nerve signals.
The robotic hand has a 3-D printed tactile fingertip on its finger. A black flexible 3-D printed skin covers the white rigid back of the fingertip. The construction is similar to the dermal-epidermal interface of the skin and is backed by a mesh consisting of dermal papillae and intermediate biometric ridges. The dermal papillae comprise markers tipping the inner pins.
Scientists constructed the papillae on advanced 3-D printers with the capability of mixing hard and soft materials to emulate effects and textures similar to human biology.
The scientists claim their work uncovers the complex internal structure of the human skin and recreates the human sense of touch. For them, this represents an exciting development in the field of soft robotics. They have been able to 3-D print an artificial tactile skin that can lead to robots that are more dexterous. They can also significantly improve the performance of prosthetic hands, providing them with an in-built sense of touch.
According to scientists at the University of Bristol, a 3-D printed tactile fingertip can produce signals from its artificial nerves. These signals are similar to the recordings from real tactile neurons. They claim human tactile nerves transfer signals from numerous mechanoreceptors or nerve endings. These indicate the shape and pressure of contact. In their work, the scientists claim to have tested their 3-D printed artificial fingertip, and they found the same ridged profiles and a startlingly close match to the recorded neural data.
