DPA Magazine | Features - The Engineer's Trusted Source of inductry articles

Wall-climbing ‘gecko’ robots may have a future role in space

06/02/2014

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 develops high speed, high data rate machine vision system for thin film inspection

28/01/2014

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.

Ageing control system? Deciding when it’s time to upgrade

02/01/2014

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.

Industrial automation: shifting up a gear

04/12/2013

Speed matters, especially when building modern production machinery to offer the highest levels of productivity, so it is no surprise to see gigabit Ethernet speeds in the latest industrial networks. John Browett looks at where these networks are currently being used, and speculates on how they will become the norm in many applications.

Injection moulders keep cool under pressure