A UR10e cobot with increased payload of 12.5kg (27.55lb) creates new possibilities for palletizing, machine tending, and packaging. The enhanced UR10e retains the small footprint, intuitive programming, repeatability, commitment to quality, and trusted performance, but its increased payload capacity allows users to do more:
Palletizing cartons weighing up to 10kg using a 2.5kg gripper
Loading, unloading heavier workpieces in machine tending; packaging heavy items
Takes more weight from human hands, shoulders, improving ergonomics, working conditions
The updated UR10e also provides plug-and-play compatibility with products from Universal Robots’ UR+ hardware and software peripheral ecosystem, ensuring that users can quickly get started with collaborative applications.
Adheso, bionically inspired gripper technology based on the principle of adhesion, uses intermolecularly acting Van der Waals forces for handling components. Made of special polymers, the surface architecture is optimized by numerical simulation, creating a formation of extremely finely structured legs that adhere to different materials and objects.
Customizable to the application, the adhesive technology is gentle on components, low-noise, and doesn’t require compressed air, vacuum, or current. An external energy supply isn’t necessary for gripping or for maintaining gripping force, and holding forces of the gripper are maintained if the handling system experiences a power failure.
Schunk Adheso allows gripping times of <100ms. It can be used in conventional industrial environments, cleanrooms, and vacuum environments. For micro-handling, repetitive positioning accuracies of <0.01mm can be achieved and it can be also be used in collaborative applications. Adheso’s bayonet lock enables gripper exchange in just a few steps.
The Tecna T2 leak tester and AV10 test fixture solution, developed specifically for verifying the integrity of medical blood lines, provides semi-automatic testing and error-proofing while reducing operator motion and overall cycle time.
The T2/AV10 automatically starts the test when the operator connects the blood line to the system and automatically releases it at the end of the test if the result is positive (passed). If it’s negative (failed), the fixture won’t release until the operator acknowledges the failure. The LCD touchscreen display shows results for individual tests as well as totals. The AV10 can be configured with customer-specified connectors.
The T2/AV10 offers leak test with full scale up to 6 bar and 1Pa (0.01mbar) resolution on leak reading. The test pressure can be regulated with a manual precision pressure regulator with pressure indicated on the display. With individual fill, settle, and measure step times, T2/AV10 can be programmed for up to 100 tests.
Heat – vital in many medical scenarios – can be delivered via flexible, stretchable materials for wound recovery or in the operating room for warming medical instruments.
Flexible printed heaters can be incorporated into bandages for quicker muscle and wound recovery.
ALL PHOTOS BUTLER TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
Flexible printed heaters – warming elements printed onto flexible, often stretchable materials – have many medical applications, from speeding wound recovery through targeted warming, controlling temperature of surgical instruments in the operating room, to improving hospital blankets.
Manufacturers deposit different conductive, resistive, and positive temperature coefficient (PTC) inks onto flexible substrates – commonly polyester (PET), Kapton RS conductive film, polyimide (PI), or thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPU). Typically, devices use lightweight rechargeable lithium batteries, so they are portable; however, the final product weight may vary depending on the required power input. Battery packs commonly range from the size of a coin cell to that of a small tablet device, operating anywhere from 2 hours-to-8 hours before recharging – depending on expected battery life and the required regulated temperature.
Butler Technologies’ HeatWave Development Kits
ALL PHOTOS BUTLER TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
Design, development
Determining how flexible printed heaters can integrate into a project is simplified with HeatWave Development Kits from Butler Technologies Inc. (BTI). Designed to bring products to market faster, the kits test product and market feasibility prior to full-scale production. Once a concept has proven feasible, engineers can work with BTI to go into full-scale heater manufacturing.
Benefits of using the HeatWave Development Kits include:
Production of positive temperature coefficient heaters.
ALL PHOTOS BUTLER TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
Cost-effective – Many engineers or designers need to test how products will operate and whether flexible printed heaters are suitable. Rather than having a custom prototype created for the design, HeatWave Development Kits offer a cost-effective research and development (R&D) solution.
Trial/error – A development kit enables engineers to tinker with their product and its design, sometimes advancing the design while ensuring it operates as intended.
Market feasibility – A product may be a great idea but without demand, there’s no reason to produce it. Using a development kit to bring a concept into a prototype helps designers test feasibility to quickly determine if it’s worthwhile for full-scale production.
Production – Once a product developed in conjunction with a HeatWave Development Kit is ready for manufacturing, engineers already know the exact design and operating parameters required, accelerating the move to full-scale production.
HeatWave Development Kits can save costs by reducing the need for custom heater designs.
The state-of-the-art, ultra-miniaturized PPG sensor module compared to a quarter shows its small profile.
PHOTO: VALENCELL
Monitoring, understanding, and gaining a clear picture of blood pressure levels is critical for individuals’ current and future health, and soon, people may be able to keep track of these measurements daily from their finger or wrist.
For the past decade, biometric technology company Valencell has been developing innovative sensor technologies for wearables and hearables to enable impactful health outcomes. Most recently, their researchers have cultivated a calibration-free, cuffless blood pressure (BP) technology that can be used in a range of devices including smartwatches, fitness bands, patches, and pulse oximeter finger clips to provide accurate readings. The solution only requires three key parameters – a photoplethysmography (PPG) signal, motion signal, and static biometrics (height, weight, age, gender).
Unlike other monitoring methods such as electrocardiogram (ECG) or pulse transit time, this technology only needs data from PPG and inertial sensors. This could, for example, allow users to obtain precise readings throughout the day by wearing their own earbuds. The data, along with the user’s physical characteristics, are processed by the Valencell BP estimation software in an embedded model created using machine learning techniques and data from tens-of-thousands of patient results.
“We wanted to take technology that used to only work in hospital settings and place it into a device that people already wear as part of their lifestyle. We took that core layer that was designed to provide motion-tolerant heart rate and other biometrics as you live your everyday life. Then we used that core technology, and we built a layer of machine learning around it,” explains Valencell President and Co-founder Dr. Steven LeBoeuf. “That machine learning connects the dots between someone’s actual blood pressure and their blood flow information. We use this motion-tolerant PPG technology that measures changes in blood flow and blood vessels.”
The PPG sensor provides useful information for the user because it can measure more at one spot within the body compared to other mechanisms. It uses light to sense motion in the body to see how it interacts with the tissue, collecting the necessary information to determine measurements such as heart rate, respiratory rate, or blood flow.
Designing PPG sensor technology
Building the PPG machine learning-based model required a lot of data – 50,000 data sets of 5,000 subjects – collected from different parts of the body including the ear, finger, wrist, and arm. Once collected, data are processed on the device’s microchip and then sent through a telemeter to a mobile device. The first reading is sent in about 30 seconds and then blood pressure rates are updated every second.
Although PPG has long been used to measure blood flow changes and translate these changes into pulse rate, LeBoeuf explains that one major obstacle faced while expanding the technology was motion noise. PPG sensors are extremely sensitive to motion, so while in development, the team focused heavily on guiding light to the right spots in the body to eliminate noise during processing and properly filter the blood flow signal.
“The rules of the game usually used in optics didn’t apply when bodies aren’t moving, therefore, a lot of the core technology comprises guiding light on the surface where it needs to be,” LeBoeuf says. “When that light is captured by a photodetector, there’s a bunch of noise in it. We had to determine how to remove the noise dynamically in time so that processing could be the next layer.”
Through this work, Valencell was able to generate clean PPG information which they predict could be processed even further with machine learning models to make other important predictions.
“There’s a lot you can do with that clean PPG information that you can’t really do with other sensory modalities. My best guess is that in maybe 10 to 20 years, almost all medical wearable devices will have some PPG component to it,” LeBoeuf says.
LeBoeuf goes on to explain that in some cases with machine learning models, it can take that information and turn it into estimations of other important measures, such as heart rate or glucose levels.
“Some of the research we’re doing today for next-generation technologies is using that information to predict whether you’re about to have a spike in glucose or a drop in glucose,” LeBoeuf adds. “It’s not measuring the glucose level, that’s not the purpose of it. We see an opportunity to enable predictions of a spike or drop, which if you could do with a device that you already wear around anyway and it’s not invasive, that really changes the game.”
Enabling impactful health outcomes
“We get this question a lot of what’s next or what the next great sensor technology will be,” LeBoeuf explains as he sets sights on the future. “It’s really more about applying the existing capabilities at scale and then layering on the data science and the machine learning to surface new insights.”
Wearable sensors, such as those being developed by Valencell, hold huge potential in increasing value in public health, both in terms of improving health and providing more manageable costs for those in need. It’s predicted that wearables will continue to advance and could eventually be used to help indicate early stages of diseases including cancer or Parkinson’s.
“I think a lot of what wearables would do for public health is going to be in screening, as an early indicator that things could be going wrong, to provide interventions that can improve health at low cost,” LeBoeuf adds. “And it doesn’t require any scientific breakthroughs or new sensor technology necessarily, those capabilities exist today. What’s different is the aggregation of the data at scale.”
NeuroPace Inc. received breakthrough device designation status from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the potential use of its RNS System to treat idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE), which constitutes as many as one-third of all epilepsies. The company plans to pursue an indication expansion to include drug-resistant IGE for the RNS System.
The RNS System, a closed-loop technology programmed by physicians, monitors and responds to a patient’s brain patterns and delivers precise therapy in real-time, without chronic stimulation side effects.
NeuroPace CEO Mike Favet says, “The RNS System’s personalized approach to neuromodulation, which recognizes and responds to a patient’s unique brain patterns, may offer a new solution for patients with drug-resistant idiopathic generalized epilepsy, a condition that severely impacts quality of life for the individual and family alike.” https://www.neuropace.com
Reverse shoulder system approved
Catalyst OrthoScience Inc. received clearance from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) to market its reverse shoulder system. Catalyst expects to begin a limited user release in the United States in Q2 2021, followed by a commercial launch later in 2021. Reverse shoulder arthroplasty is estimated to encompass more than 60% of the shoulder arthroplasty market.
The single-tray arthroplasty system combines evidence-based attributes of reverse shoulder arthroplasty design. The system offers surgeon-targeted implant positioning and bone-sparing implants. https://www.catalystortho.com
OnRobot, Vention one-stop-shop for cobot applications
OnRobot, Vention one-stop-shop for cobot applications
Vention is pairing its online-first manufacturing automation platform (MAP) with OnRobot’s plug-and-play end-of-arm tools to accelerate design and deployment of end-to-end collaborative robot (cobot) applications.
Vention’s MAP provides the engineering software and modular hardware to design, automate, order, and deploy factory equipment in a single digital environment. OnRobot’s plug-and-play tools for cobot and light industrial robotics allow manufacturers to scale production with greater flexibility and efficiency.
These offerings ease automating tasks such as machine tending, material handling, material removal, and assembly.
The LDL linear electric actuator, offered in 12mm and 25mm widths, features printed coil technology with integrated SMAC encoder reader head. It averages more than 100 million cycles and repeats in milliseconds, allowing almost instantaneous changeover.
Other standard sizes are being added, and using MCA laser cutting technology inside can quickly develop special shapes.
YPR-100-100-100 -01: Driven by two-phase stepper motor
-02 version: Driven by three-phase brushless servo motors with quadrature incremental optical encoders mounted on the motor shaft
-03 version: Driven by DC servo motors with quadrature incremental optical encoders
-04 version: Driven by stepper motors with quadrature optical encoders for position verification
Each roll stage provides precise measurements of object angles and curvature, laser machining and drilling, scanning, and tracking, and can be used with coordinate measuring machines.
The YPR-100-100-100-01 and -04 versions have a maximum speed of 14° per second and a resolution of 0.001° equal to 3.6 arc sec when the resolution of the micro-step driver is 10 microsteps per step. Positional accuracy is 0.05° and repeatability is ±0.01°.
For speeds up to 45° per second, greater accuracy, and resolution, the YPR-100-100-100-02, or -03 tri-axis stages are most suitable.
Each axis is equipped with a home switch to signal the motion controller to reach the home position and a Vernier scale.
The top stage has a precision pattern of threaded holes for mounting tooling or fixtures, and a 30mm thru hole.
An optional 200mm x 200mm mounting plate is also available.
