This paper focuses on some of the presentations given at a technical workshop on “Laser processing of polymer‐based materials”, organised by Association of Industrial Laser Users. Applications in cutting and welding are discussed and specifically how different combinations of polymer...

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States), the world‐known basic and applied research facility operated by the US Department of Energy, was tasked with reducing the cost to produce titanium aluminide sheet metal used to cover the outside of military aircraft and...

Recent National Manufacturing Week Show in Chicago highlighted many new innovations. Assembly system designers can choose from new low inertia drives, more compact linear and rotary motors, innovative robots and pneumatic actuators along with new modular structural components which were featured...

This paper describes the benefits of vision guided robotics when applied in four industrial manufacturing case studies relating to plastics industries. These include trimming, welding, degating and deflashing operations.

Micromanipulation has enabled numerous technological breakthroughs in recent years, from advances in biotechnology to microcomponent assembly. Micromotion devices commonly use piezoelectric actuators (PZT) together with compliant mechanisms to provide fine motions with position resolution in the...

Robotic exploration of the planet Mars is the goal of two space missions launched in 2003. Their aim was to use robots and a host of instrumentation to take samples of soil and rock and to analyse them for evidence of life. The NASA project, which landed on Mars in January 2004, has put the two...

Dutch company Insentec has developed a robotic solution for milking cows. Using a standard industrial robot and machine vision, Insentec's Galaxy product is a fully automated milking station that is available to cows 24 h a day. Some 100 systems are already in use on farms around Europe.

ABB has launched a new robot controller, the fifth generation IRC5. One of its major features is MultiMove, a function that enables fully coordinated control of up to 36 axes, equal to four six‐axis robots plus work positioners or other servo devices. This opens up new application areas with a...

Robot football uses autonomous vehicles that respond to unpredictable events. It presents engineering challenges embracing a wide range of disciplines, and attracts and holds the interest of undergraduates and postgraduates, educationists, school children and laymen. National and international...

Reports from Industrie 2004 in Paris, the exhibition that took place alongside the International Symposium of Robotics (ISR), highlights the development of synchronous robot control, identifies innovation in the area of laser welding by robot, outlines the need for high payload robots.