For trucks with trailers, slippery winter roads and downhill gradients represent a tough challenge for even the most skilled of drivers. There is always the risk of the rig becoming unstable and, in the worst-case scenario, starting to jack-knife.
Are we on the brink of a robotics revolution? That's what the media asked last December when Google acquired eight robotics companies. Rob Matheson reports.
Climbing robots that mimic the stickiness of gecko lizard feet could work in space as well as on Earth, the European Space Agency (ESA) has shown, raising the prospect of hull-crawling automatons tending future spacecraft.
Optimal has developed a bespoke machine vision system for the real-time 100 percent inspection of a thin film product used in the manufacture of electronic components.
Most new machines already include the latest technologies in their control systems. This is expected from an OEM keen to retain a hard-won reputation and market leadership. End users, however, have different criteria to those of OEMs.