Worldwide Engineering Magazine - December Issue

December Issue ViewSonic Announces Top 100 Winners of the ColorPro Award 2021

New Microscope Uses Photonics to Gain Insights Into ‘Superbugs’

Herga 6256 Industrial Footswitch with Pressure Activated Override

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worldwide-engineering.com

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Winners of the Plastics Recycling Awards Europe 2021 announced at PRSE

Increases in the number of different Powertrains

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Microchip adds second development tool offering

FLIR A50 and A70 Thermal Cameras offer turnkey solutions

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How to specify a motion solution for a wheeled robot

Imaging Development Systems all-in-one embedded vision platform

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Rittall Off to a Flying Start

Verlinde Meije renews the overhead crane of a hydroelectric plant

Worldwide Engineering Magazine Providing timely industry news, exclusive features on advancing technology, equipment, materials, show previews, content marketing services for our valued clients and much more!

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Winners of the Plastics Recycling Awards Europe 2021 announced at PRSE Winners of the Plastics Recycling Awards Europe 2021 were announced today at the Plastics Recycling Show Europe in Amsterdam. This year’s award winners have together made very conspicuous progress in effective design for recycling, which in turn is defining the path towards more recyclable plastic products and the truly circular use of plastics.

becircular - 100% recyclable - 100% recycled plastic by SAEME for Danone Eaux France

- Automotive, Electrical or Electronic Product: Speed Home WLAN by Deutsche Telekom AG

- Recycling Machinery Innovation (Joint winners):

- Building & Construction Product: Circular Green Rope by Plastix A/S - Household & Leisure Product: HÅG Capisco Puls - auburn coloured made of recycled snow plough markers by Flokk - Plastic Packaging Product: Labeless bottle, designed to

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- Product Technology Innovation: Recyclable PP trigger sprayer by Reckitt - Plastics Recycling Ambassador: Flor Peña Herron, Avery Dennison

BritAS Recycling-Anlagen GmbH’s ABMF-PET-C & INTAREMA® TVEplus® RegrindPro® + ReFresher by EREMA Engineering Recycling Maschinen und Anlagen Ges.m.b.H. The Automotive, Electrical or Electronic Product award winner, the Speed Home WLAN by Deutsche Telekom AG is made with almost 100% recycled content

that comes from the WEEE (Waste Electrical & Environmental Equipment) stream. The judges praised this appliance for being an excellent example of the circular use of plastics into the same class of everyday objects, while maintaining the visual appeal of the exterior design.

Plastix’s Circular Green Rope, the Building & Construction Product winner, shows that it is possible to successfully recycle fishing gear, an application that has proved challenging up until now. This genuinely innovative and holistic cross-industry solution is both a key enabler of the transition to the Circular New Plastics Economy and a real business opportunity.

The auburn-coloured HÅG Capisco Puls from Flokk made from recycled snow plough markers is this year’s

Household and Leisure Product award winner. The jury praised Flokk for its relentless commitment towards sustainable and durable furniture.

The new chair features a seat and back shell made of 100% recycled post-consumer polypropylene, showing how plastic waste can be recycled into a desirable design without compromising its quality or functionality. The desk chair also scored very highly for aesthetics, ergonomics and design. It allows different sitting positions, for example to engage the legs, which are not possible with conventionally designed chairs.

Recyclability of packaging is the first step to ensure it will be recycled back into a high quality, closed-loop application. The Evian labeless bottle designed to be circular by SAEME for Danone Eaux France is truly innovative packaging and winner of the Plastic Packaging Product category. Removing the label from the bottle minimises packaging use and helps the recycling process.

The packaging scores A+++ in the RecyClass analysis.

The Product Technology Innovation award goes to Reckitt for its mono-material PP Trigger Sprayer, a significant advance in design to improve the recyclability of this popular product. Trigger sprays often contain multiple materials that can include metal or glass, making them difficult to recycle.

The judges commended Reckitt for reducing the weight of this component and by committing to moving from 22 variants of trigger sprayers to 3 and reducing the number of colour variations from 42 to 6. This excellent example of design for recycling sends an important signal for other companies to follow.

The Plastics Recycling Ambassador 2021 is Flor Peña Herron, Sustainability & Circular Economy Manager EMENA at Avery Dennison Label and Packaging Materials.

The judges praised Flor for setting the course for converters, label producers, the packaging industry and the whole value chain in her

commitment to work on improving plastic packaging recyclability and recycling in Europe. She leverages multiple platforms including Petcore and RecyClass, and her passion and motivation are delivering real change in making plastics circular.

Two entries in the Recycling Machinery Innovation category scored equal highest points from the jury, clearly ahead of all other finalists, and the judges therefore decided to make the award to both jointly.

Launched to the market in October of this year, Britas’s ABMF-PET-C (Automatic Belt Melt Filter) provides fully automated filtration of contaminants from plastic waste.

For the first time it allows the continuous processing of postconsumer waste without stopping production, making it ideal for continuous processing and consistent pellet quality.

INTAREMA® TVEplus® RegrindPro® + ReFresher by EREMA Erema applies the company’s existing and very successful ReFresher technology for recycling food contact HDPE containers. The judges recongised this innovation as a step change in eliminating unwanted odour from waste plastics, allowing recyclate to replace virgin palstics in high end applications. This type of innovation is essential for meeting EU targets for recycled content of food contact plastics.

The winners each receive a trophy, with a 3D printed base made from 100% recycled ABS plastic car dashboards and the multicolour top which is laser cut from compressed HDPE beach clean-up bottle caps.

“This year’s winners are a true testament that a high percentage of recycled content can be used successfully for high-end, branded consumer goods in everyday use,” said Ton Emans, President of Plastics Recyclers Europe. “Now in their fourth year, the awards as a whole show how well all plastic value chain actors are collaborating to improve recycling: everyone from major brands and

material producers through to converters, label producers and manufacturers of shredding and extrusion machinery.”

“Congratulations to all eight of our outstanding winners. These incredible projects and products prove our sector’s commitment to the recycling and reuse of plastics by design,” said Brennan Lafferty Vice President, Crain Communications. “They show us all that by working together we can make great things from recycled plastics and substantially increase the uptake of recyclates.”

The expert judging panel for the Plastics Recycling Awards 2021 includes three previous winners of the Ambassador Award: Professor Kim Ragaert of Maastricht University (2020), Gian de Belder, Technical Director, R&D Packaging Sustainability at Procter & Gamble (2019) and Willemijn Peeters CEO of Searious Business (2018). They were joined by Ton Emans, President of Plastics Recyclers Europe (PRE); Karen Laird, Editor of Sustainable Plastics and Rune Thoralfsson, Owner and Director of plastic film recycler Norfolier GreenTec AS. The Plastics Recycling Awards Europe are organised jointly by Plastics Recyclers Europe and Crain Communications, organisers of PRSE. EREMA Engineering Recycling Maschinen GmbH, Fimic SRL and Tomra Sorting Recycling are platinum sponsors of the 2021 Awards.

The Plastics Recycling Show Europe is a free-to-attend exhibition and a conference designed specifically for plastics recycling professionals.

It brings together key players from the plastics and recycling sectors to showcase innovative technology, share best practice, network and do business. A broad cross-section of the industry is represented at the event including plastics recycling machinery and equipment suppliers, plastic material suppliers and compounders, pre-processors, plastics recyclers, waste management specialists and industry associations.

For more information: www.prseventeurope.com 5

Celebrating 40 years of Endoline Automation In the same year that Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer and the first London Marathon was run, a man with a passion for British manufacturing and engineering created his first entry level semiautomatic case sealer from a rented room within a former corset factory.

The year was 1981, and Ronald Yates, who was both a Chartered Mechanical Engineer and a Chartered Electrical Engineer, had just founded Endoline Machinery.

Now in its 40th anniversary year the company, which is today under the leadership of the third generation of Yates’, is reflecting on its history and looking to the future.

The early days Back in the early 1980’s UK manufacturers, outside of the automotive industry, were starting to wake up to the benefits of automation. Within the food sector, the advent of the ready-meal led to manufacturing at unprecedented rates. Customers, becoming increasingly time poor were demanding more and more variety, and the pressure from retailers was on manufacturers to deliver.

Consequently, many became reliant on a range of processing and packaging technologies to manage production.

Ron’s semi-automatic case sealer, which is still widely sold by Endoline today, enabled manufacturers to seal cases at speed, and with precision. As demand for automation increased, Ron and his team (many of whom are still employed by the company today) engineered new systems which would support manufacturers.

Customisation and international growth

From semi-automatic to fullyautomatic systems, Endoline became synonymous with creating high-quality end-of-line machinery, with Ron achieving wide respect across the packaging industry.

For instance, the company’s unique dual opposing vacuum technology was first launched in 1990 to ensure that each case was opened positively from both sides, to eliminate damage to packs, which was particularly important in the forming of shelf-ready cases.

The booming snacks industry, and demand on manufacturers to produce greater product varieties and sizes led to Endoline creating the 744 Fully Automatic Random Case Sealer in 2012. This system went on to set new standards in high speed, random case sealing and was sold to snacks manufacturers across the globe.

It also continues to be a flagship, award-winning Endoline machine.

In 1990, having moved the business to larger premises in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, where the company is still based today, Ron was joined by his son, Alan.

During the 90’s the business went from strength to strength. Its range of end-of-line packaging machines grew to include both semi and fully automatic case erectors, case loaders, case sealers, and hand-packing stations. At a time when the health conscious and governing bodies were dictating that a greater degree of nutritional information had to be printed on food packs, Endoline, having forged alliances with other OEM’s, integrated its systems into manufacturing plants to create fully turnkey lines.

With engineering still firmly at its roots, Endoline continually redesigned its systems to incorporate unique technical features which would aid both manufacturers and overcome any packaging automation issues.

Endoline has always been, and will continue to be, a staunch British manufacturer. During the recession in 2008, while reaffirming its vision that manufacturing and development should remain focused on one key site of manufacturing excellence in the UK, the company devised a clear export strategy to sell its systems overseas to boost sales during the crisis. The move paid dividends as Endoline’s reputation for engineering high quality systems with technical design components to meet specific customer needs laid the foundation for the company’s overseas success.

Today, Endoline, through direct customer sales and distributor relationship, has a presence in over 20 countries.

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Looking to the future Today, the vision which Ron Yates set out back in 1981 still holds strong: “We pride ourselves on our engineering expertise, product quality, after sales service and pursuit of the corporate objective – a total dedication to customer needs” Now under the steer of the third generation of Yates, with Andrew Yates as Managing Director and Richard Yates as Operations Director, Endoline is in a good position. The pandemic expedited demand from manufacturers to automate and Endoline today boasts a strong order pipeline.

In 2019, Endoline entered into a strategic partnership with FANUC UK and, for the first time in its history, launched a sister company, Endoline Robotics Limited (ERL). The move was made to meet the ever-growing demand for fully automated endof-line systems, which increasingly require robotic solutions.

“My grandfather, Ron, was an exceptionally gifted engineer, qualified as both a Chartered Mechanical Engineer and Chartered Electrical Engineer – he was to all intents and purposes the Lionel Messi of engineering,” Andrew comments.

“To this day, this passion for engineering and UK manufacturing is at the heart of Endoline and will drive us into the future. As a family, we firmly believe that a business is only as good as the people employed and the product created.

We are very fortunate because we are excellent in both of these areas.

Even after all these years our products remain industry leading and, in terms of our people, we have some fantastic, dedicated, loyal and hardworking employees, many of whom have spent their entire careers with us. Both Richard and I are delighted to now be at the helm of the company and, one day in the future, we look forward to handing on the mantle to the fourth generation of Yates.”

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Automotive manufacturing must adapt to a changing and diverse powertrain mix ABB-sponsored report highlights the challenges faced by car manufacturers as the transition to electrified vehicles gathers pace, bringing with it the need to manage huge complexity in assembly and supply chains.

According to Flexing for the Future, a 2035 Global Powertrain Forecast Report sponsored by ABB Robotics and authored by the automotive intelligence unit of Ultima Media, car manufacturers must adopt a more flexible and collaborative approach to their production and logistics infrastructure if they are to maintain profitability and quality into the next decade.

Faced with ambitious targets for mitigating climate change together with huge regional variations in regulations and consumer attitudes, manufacturers are responding by developing platforms and production facilities that accommodate a complex mix of powertrains, from petrol and diesel to hybrid and battery-electric, as well as emerging technologies such as hydrogen fuel cells.

This variability introduces a new level of complexity that extends far beyond the factory walls and throughout the global logistics and supply chains.

With conventional ICE powertrains sharing little with their EV successors

the sheer variety of components and processes that must be supported can quickly become unmanageable. Added to which, the speed with which market conditions, government incentives, legislation, and even the underlying technology itself can change means that manufacturers must seek to engineer even greater flexibility into their production facilities if they are to respond to this uncertainty.

The report, released today, suggests manufacturers must increasingly turn to digitalisation and automation to deliver the flexibility required to manage this variety.

“By unravelling traditional longline production architectures and deploying dedicated modular cells, manufacturers gain the ability to modify or even replace individual cells without incurring costly production interruptions,” says Joerg Reger, Managing Director of ABB Robotics’ automotive business. “These zero-loss production changes allow OEMs to start small and scale up key parts of the assembly process by adding or redeploying cells as demands change. By engineering flexibility into the process, we create the means to not just manage this rising complexity, but to turn it into an opportunity.”

One of the most significant technologies in supporting this

flexibility is the switch to more autonomous logistics and material handling in plants, the report suggests, with OEMs increasingly relying on Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) to move materials flexibly.

By creating a ‘digital twin’ of the facility, changes can be examined and optimised beforehand, and once a cell’s design has been perfected in the virtual space, it can be quickly rolledout as a fully validated unit anywhere in the world. Cellular manufacturing also allows robots to be redeployed or moved to areas of high demand with a “lift and shift” process, meaning an asset can extend its life beyond its original purpose.

Key to the success of these initiatives is the need for closer collaboration between a manufacturer and their automation partner. The report outlines that the challenge for many OEMs and Tier-1 suppliers is that their expertise tends to be concentrated in particular product technologies and manufacturing processes. The best way, therefore, to develop solutions quickly is through collaboration with a suitable external partner. Combining the process expertise of the supplier with the automation expertise of an outside company can enable the co-creation of automation solutions in which products are not only ‘designed for manufacture’ but ‘designed for automation’.

That can lead to automation penetrating further into the production process, as evidenced by the growth in robotics use in final trim and assembly, or new technologies such as ABB’s PixelPaint that remove the need for labour-intensive processes that can slow down production.

However, as the report notes, achieving flexible automation is not just a matter of acquiring robots; it requires a completely fresh view of how to maximise manufacturing efficiency in an uncertain and rapidly changing environment. The report is available to download here.

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ViewSonic announces top 100 winners of the ColorPro Award 2021 global photography contest Approximately 6,500 Contestants from 41 Countries Captured Their Idea of ‘New Adventure’ ViewSonic Corp., a leading global provider of visual solutions, is proud to announce the Top 100 winners of the ColorPro Award 2021 Global Photography Contest.

Approximately 6,500 photo entries from 41 countries were submitted depicting this year’s theme of ‘New Adventure’. The diverse and extraordinary images will be presented at an exclusive exhibition in December.

“It’s true when they say a picture is worth a thousand words. Every single photo submitted told their individual story – whether of hope, excitement, or even heartbreak. We are very honored to receive these

incredible artworks and to share them with the world,” said Oscar Lin, General Manager of the Monitor Business Unit at ViewSonic. “The ColorPro Awards was birthed following ColorPro’s vision. It was to celebrate creators and their inspirations. And as seen through their lenses, this contest captured this spirit through adventure in all its forms.”

A natural transition from last year’s theme – which centered on the global act of kindness in times of adversity – this year sought to portray the sense of adventure as the world starts to reopen. The 6,500 entries encompassed a myriad of subjects, from landscape and wildlife to portraits and architecture. More than just a photography contest, the ColorPro Awards is a festival of

storytelling and the visual arts to inspire the world with creativity.

The esteemed panel of nine judges from ViewSonic, Capture One, Shoot the Frame, Monogram Creative Console, Getty Images, and iStock handpicked 100 winning submissions that exuded creativity, conveyed a story, and encapsulated the spirit of ‘New Adventure’. ViewSonic will be hosting award ceremonies to announce the top 10 winners and exhibitions to showcase all 100 photo submissions in London, the United Kingdom, and Taipei City, Taiwan in early December 2021.

For more details on the ColorPro Awards 2021, please visit the contest website; to access the Top 100 photos, please click here

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Delta showcases IIoT products and highly efficient Servo Drive ASDA-B3 at SPS Nuremberg 2021 Delta, a world-class provider of industrial automation solutions, announced today it is exhibiting a full range of industrial automation products and systems at this year’s Smart Production Solutions (SPS) at Hall 3A, booth 245.

The showcase includes the new ASDA-B3 Servo Drive, which boosts high responsiveness up to 3.1 kHz and high positioning precision with over 16.7 million pulses per revolution to optimize production efficiency and output value in a wide range of applications, such as machine tools, electronics, semiconductors, industrial robots, printing, packaging, textiles, and warehousing. In addition, the newly-launched DMV3D Scanner and DMV-T Time of Flight Camera, which provide high-speed 3D industrial imaging for various applications, also underscore Delta’s goal to become a complete automation supplier of IIoT-based industrial automation solutions.

“A lot of our customers are now investing in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). ,” said Roetger Sander, deputy director of Delta’s Industrial Automation Business Group for Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) region. “Open platform communications united architecture (OPC UA) is a standard that many customers have chosen to work with. We’re excited that the new products we’re bringing to SPS is meeting the open OPC UA standard and can support a wide range of IIoT applications.”

ASDA-B3 Servo Drive The new ASDA-B3 Servo Drive, with a significant jump in performance,

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is an addition to the servo drive family from Delta. Responsiveness is now 3.1 kHz versus the 1 kHz of the previous model. The latest model also contributes to improving the productivity with a 40% reduction in the settling time.

Positioning is now several orders of magnitude more precise thanks to the 24-bit encoder, which also retains the motor’s position data when the drive power is off.

In addition, features of lower cogging torque, higher speed up to 6,000 rpm, higher maximum torque, and safe torque off (STO) ensure its high performance and enhanced safety operation.

It is an ideal solution for a wide range of applications such as machine tools, electronics, semiconductors, industrial robots, printing, packaging, textiles, and warehousing.

DMV3D Scanner The new Delta DMV3D Scanner uses structured light, line scan and stereo camera to generate point clouds and depth maps for manufacturing quality control and measurement applications such as flatness control and height and area measurement.

A scan rate of 1 Hz ensures rapid imaging while maintaining an XY resolution 0.08 mm at the 12 mm focal length and 0.04 mm for the 25mm focal length.

High Z repeatability of down to 2 and lower in addition to IP67 protection deliver high accuracy and the ability to operate in harsh production environments where dust or water are present.

The DMV3D does not require an external IPC to operate.

DMV-T Time of Flight Camera Another new machine vision camera from Delta premiering at SPS is the high-speed DMV-T Time of Flight Camera. The ToF (Time of Flight) sensor combines with a built-in processor to offer high frame rates of up to 60 frames per second. The camera obtains depth information by calculating phase differences between the carrier frequency of the active light emitted by the camera and the light reflected from the object to acquire 3D information at very high speeds.

Manufacturers can use the DMV-T to obtain 3D information from a single exposure. It supports the generation of depth maps and point cloud output as well as different acquisition modes including continuous, multiple shot, and single shot. Many areas including agriculture, logistics, automatic guided vehicles, and robotics stand to benefit from the high performance and high environmental protection level that makes this device suitable for a wide range of industrial applications. please visit www.delta-emea.com

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Up to 15% OFF on all Raptor SWIR Cameras Fantastic Christmas offer from QDUKI and Raptor Photonics Until the 31st January 2022, Quantum Design UK and Ireland is offering up to 15% off the whole Raptor Photonics SWIR Camera range.

If you’ve been considering adding SWIR capabilities to your lab, now is the time to treat yourself!

Raptor has become the market leader in SWIR camera technology and their cameras are used in a variety of applications including low light day and nighttime imaging, spectroscopy, fluorescence, time-resolved, in-vivo imaging.

Raptor Ninox 640 II VIS-SWIR Camera - High resolution, low noise, digital InGaAs camera The Ninox 640 II is the next generation of the highly successful Ninox 640. With an ultra low typical readout noise (rms) of 18 electrons and a typical dark current reading of <750e- at -15°C, the Ninox 640 II improves even further on it’s noise performance.

The mechanical design of the camera is also much improved and the camera is significantly more compact than the initial Ninox 640.

Meet some of our SWIR cameras Raptor OWL 640 T VIS-SWIR Camera - The World’s First SWaP Optimised ½” / VGA InGaAs Sensor with VISSWIR Response The Owl 640 T is the latest variant of the Owl 640 family, being the world’s first SWaP optimised ½” / VGA InGaAs sensor with a 10µm x 10µm pixel pitch. The Owl 640 T offers a spectral response from 0.6µm to 1.7µm and has less than 50 electrons readout noise, with a high intra-scene dynamic range of 69dB that enables simultaneous capture of bright and dark portions of a scene.

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Raptor OWL 640 N VIS-SWIR Camera - Ultra Low Readout Noise (<18e-) Digital VIS-SWIR Camera Using next-generation technology, Raptor has launched one of the lowest noise VIS-SWIR cameras on the market, perfect for imaging in low light conditions. Using a 640 x 512 InGaAs sensor, and the sensor stabilised to 15°C, the Owl 640 N offers a visible response from 0.4µm to 1.7µm to enable a high sensitivity. The camera also offers the lowest readout noise on the market with a typical value of 18 electrons. The camera has a high intra-scene dynamic range of typically 73dB, enabling simultaneous capture of bright and dark portions of a scene.

Raptor Ninox 1280 VIS-SWIR Camera - High resolution, low noise, cooled, digital VIS-SWIR InGaAs camera Using a 1280 x 1024 InGaAs sensor, the Ninox 1280 offers visible extension from 0.4µm to 1.7µm to enable high sensitivity scientific imaging. With cooling to -15°C, the camera achieves typical dark current readings of <2,000e/p/s at this temperature, allowing for longer exposure times.

This is one of the lowest dark current readings on the market for a HD resolution SWIR camera. The 10µm x 10µm pixel pitch enables the highest resolution imaging. The camera will offer ultra-high intrascene dynamic range of 69dB enabling simultaneous capture of bright & dark portions of a scene.

Get in touch today Email luke@qd-uki.co.uk or call 01372 378822

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Up to 15% off the whole SWIR range

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3D Systems advances production applications with new additive manufacturing solutions 3D Systems (NYSE:DDD) today announced a host of innovations designed to enhance customer success and catalyze industries.

The company is introducing high-throughput 3D printing technologies, a new partnership to provide industry-leading postprocessing, improved additive manufacturing software, and a new production-grade photopolymer. By combining these latest innovations along with the expertise of its Application Innovation Group (AIG), 3D Systems is helping customers defy limitations to advance additive manufacturing (AM) performance and productivity in healthcare and industrial markets.

Industrial-Scale SLS Solution Delivers Repeatable End-Use Parts 3D Systems designs and delivers AM solutions comprising hardware, software, materials, and services to help companies accelerate their business innovations. Today the

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company is pleased to introduce its next-generation selective laser sintering (SLS) workflow that combines 3D Systems’ new SLS 380, 3D Sprint®, DuraForm® materials, and AMT’s PostPro® enabling cost-effective batch production parts with unprecedented levels of throughput, consistency, performance, and yield.

The SLS 380 delivers high levels of repeatability, improved throughput, and reduced operating costs for more effective, efficient digital manufacturing. The SLS printer utilizes a custom algorithm that manages eight separately calibrated heaters, together with an integrated high-resolution IR camera that captures over 100,000 thermal data samples per second to manage, monitor, and control thermal uniformity within the build chamber.

As part of this new platform, 3D Systems is also introducing a new Material Quality Control (MQC)

system, the MQC 600. The MQC ensures an optimal ratio of fresh to recycled material and the MQC 600 is optimized to deliver material to up to four printers simultaneously, minimizing material waste and eliminating operator intervention.

The company is planning general availability of the SLS 380 for the first quarter of 2022.

To complete the workflow, 3D Systems will resell AMT’s line of products to provide a fully automated post-processing workflow. AMT’s PostPro industrialscale SLS post-processing system includes fully automated depowdering and chemical vapor smoothing solutions that optimize part quality and mechanical performance while improving efficiencies. PostPro enables batch cleaning and smoothing of parts thus reducing lead time and manufacturing costs and enabling factory scalability.

Enhanced DMP Configuration Accelerates Innovation for Healthcare & Industrial Applications 3D Systems’ Direct Metal Printing (DMP) platform is recognized as an industry-leading technology for its ability to produce exceptionally strong parts of high chemical purity. As a result, many of the world’s largest manufacturers rely on the company’s metal additive manufacturing solutions to produce products, components, and tools with reduced weight, increased functionality, and simplified assemblies.

Today, the company is announcing the DMP Flex 350 Dual and DMP Factory 350 Dual that include two lasers that help reduce build time by up to 50% and lower cost. These latest additions to the company’s DMP portfolio maintain the benefits of the single-laser configurations including flexible application use and quick-swap build modules (DMP Flex 350 Dual); integrated powder recycling (DMP Factory 350 Dual); and a central server to manage print jobs, materials, settings, and maintenance for 15

24/7 productivity. Additionally, the company’s unique vacuum chamber significantly reduces argon gas consumption while delivering best-in-class oxygen purity (<30 ppm). The DMP Flex 350 Dual and DMP Factory 350 Dual can help accelerate innovation for a variety of applications including medical devices, aerospace, turbomachinery, semiconductors, and automotive & motorsports. The general availability of these printers is anticipated for the first quarter of 2022.

DMP Flex 200 Delivers Exceptional Quality for Broad Range of Dental Applications The DMP Flex 200 is designed for additive manufacturing of highquality, small, complex, fine detail metal parts making it ideal for dental applications including nextday removable partial dentures (RPDs), crowns, bridges, and implant bars. The DMP Flex 200 features a 500W laser source and a larger build volume (140 x 140 x 115 mm or 5.51 x 5.51 x 4.53 in) with a build plate clamping mechanism that eliminates the need for screw management inside the process chamber. 3D Systems plans to make the DMP Flex 200 available in the first quarter of 2022.

3DXpert® 17 Accelerates Production with Topology Optimization, Machine Learning Customers integrating 3D Systems’ DMP portfolio into their production workflow can also benefit from the enhanced features of 3DXpert 17, which is available from Oqton.

Through the acquisition of Oqton, announced in September, 3D Systems will make its entire AM suite of software platforms available to the additive manufacturing industry. 3DXpert is the industry’s most powerful integrated tool to prepare and optimize parts quickly, enabling rapid design for additive manufacturing (DfAM) to shorten production time and increase part precision. Features available in the new version accelerate part design with higher yield and faster print times. General availability of 16

3DXpert 17 is planned for the fourth quarter of 2021.

Figure 4® Rigid 140C Black Opens New Automotive & Industrial Applications The rapid innovation occurring in 3D Systems’ materials portfolio is enabling the company’s customers to address a variety of new production applications. Today, 3D Systems announced Figure 4 Rigid 140C Black, a two-part epoxy/ acrylate hybrid material, designed to deliver production-grade parts with long-term mechanical stability in various environments.

This innovative material, made with patented filler, provides toughness comparable to injection molded polybutylene glass fiber (PBT GF). Figure 4 Rigid 140C Black has a 124°C @1.82MPa HDT which makes it a very attractive material for under-the-hood and internal cabin automotive applications including end-use clips, covers, connectors, housings and fasteners, electrical latching, and board connectors.

Under-the-hood components produced with Figure 4 Rigid 140C Black demonstrated excellent reliability when subjected to high temperature operating life (HTOL) testing. These parts also demonstrate good part-to-part friction which makes this an ideal material for industrial applications such as levers, knobs, and clutches as the material maintains its structural properties.

Figure 4 Rigid 140C Black was tested to the equivalent of eight years indoor and one and a half years in outdoor environments per ASTM D4329 and ASTM G194 methods.

Innovators who use this material in conjunction with 3D Systems’ Figure 4 technology will not only be

able to create production parts with excellent surface quality, accuracy, and repeatability, they will also be able to reduce the time to final part due to the company’s efficient thermal post-cure process.

Manufacturers will benefit from the required three-hour thermal post-cure at 135°C without the need to pack the parts in salt, as is required for other similar materials available on competitive systems.

Additionally, the cure time is approximately 75% shorter than the eight to 12 hours required for similar materials available on competitive systems.

“We’re excited to be able to meet with our industry colleagues, collaborators, and customers here at Formnext and introduce new product enhancements in our additive manufacturing portfolio,” said Dr. David Leigh, chief technology officer for additive manufacturing, 3D Systems. “We remain committed to investing in our core technologies that help our customers tackle the toughest production applications.

As we approach the end of the year, we’re looking forward to the future with great anticipation and the realization that we can’t accomplish this by ourselves. We see tremendous opportunities to collaborate with others in the industry to bring together our products and expertise – fundamentally transforming the solutions we provide to help change the world of additive manufacturing.”

3D Systems will showcase these new technologies and solutions in its booth (Hall 12.1 D101) at Formnext 2021. For more information, please visit the company’s website. www.3dsystems.com

Microchip adds second development tool offering for designers using its low-power PolarFire® RISC-V® SoC FPGA for embedded vision applications at the Edge Platform extends customer options for designing secure and reliable systems in applications ranging from neural network inferencing to Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and factory automation.

Microchip Technology (Nasdaq: MCHP) today announced the second development tool offering in its Smart Embedded Vision initiative for designers using its PolarFire RISC-V System on Chip (SoC) Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA).

The industry’s lowest-power SoC FPGA in its class, the PolarFire device is the only mid-range device of its kind that simultaneously supports dual 4K video processing and quad core RISC-V application-class processors running both the Real Time Operating System (RTOS) and rich operating systems like Linux®.

Microchip’s Smart Embedded Vision development platform joins the

company’s previously announced VectorBlox™ software development kit (SDK) and IP for using the PolarFire devices to program a trained neural network without prior FPGA expertise. The latest offering simplifies edge-compute solution development in the thermally challenging environments of the IIoT and factory automation applications. The platform’s IP, hardware and tools for these solutions include: - Embedded Vision – Supports the following: dual 4K MIPI CSI-2 cameras; HDMI® 2.0 with expansion based on the FPGA Mezzanine Card (FMC); CoaXPress® 2.0; SDI (6 Gbps and 12 Gbps); Universal Serial 10 GE Media Independent Interface (USXGMII) MAC IP with auto-negotiation; and USB 3.1 Gen 1 and Gen 2 protocols.

- IIoT and factory automation – Enables: Wi-Fi®/Bluetooth®;

USB 2.0; SD Card; Embedded MultiMediaCard (eMMC); fully integrated Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe®) endpoint and root port functionality configured for four lanes; and a mikroBUS™ connector that can be used with Microchip’s Trust&GO platform for secure cloud connectivity.

The platform includes support for Microchip’s Mi-V RISC-V ecosystem including development tools from AdaCore, Green Hills Software, Mentor Graphics and Wind River.

Commercial RTOS solutions are available including VxWorks® and Nucleus®, and free ones include Zephyr® and FreeRTOS™.

Middleware solutions are available from DornerWorks, Hex Five and Veridify Security.

Microchip’s PolarFire SoC FPGAs combine thermal efficiency, and defense-grade security for smart, connected systems with half the power consumption of alternatives.

The PolarFire SoC and the Smart Embedded Vision Platform offer designers the choice of rich operating system-based edge compute, hard real-time, with large 2 MB memory and mixed real-time plus rich OS support. Users can learn one platform and serve three applications.

Availability Microchip’s Smart Embedded Vision development platform is available now and PolarFire SoC FPGAs are in production. For more information contact FPGA_Marketing@microchip. com. Please let us know if you would like to speak to a subject matter expert on PolarFire SoC FPGAs and how to optimize IIoT, factory automation and other embedded vision applications at the edge.

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New microscope uses photonics to gain insights into ‘superbugs’ Scientists are building a new super-resolution microscope that uses laser light to study the inner workings and behaviours of superbugs to gain new insights into how they cause disease.

The microscope will allow scientists to peer into bacteria like Streptococcus Pneumoniae at a molecular-scale resolution – showing up objects smaller than 10,000th the thickness of a sheet of paper.

A leading cause of bacterial pneumonia, meningitis, and sepsis, Streptococcus Pneumoniae bacteria are estimated to have caused around 335,000 deaths in children aged five years and under in 2015 worldwide.

Current technologies do not allow a resolution that enables thorough studies of bacterial properties that affect disease development.

But now, this super-resolution microscope uses laser light to illuminate proteins at incredibly high resolutions, allowing scientists to gain new insights into what makes these potentially deadly bacteria so pathogenic.

Although electron microscopes can show minute detail at the atomic level, they cannot analyse live specimens: electrons can easily be deflected by molecules in the air, meaning any bacteria under inspection must be held in a vacuum. Therefore super-resolution microscopes are far more superior for biological analysis.

Called the “NANO-scale Visualisation to understand Bacterial virulence and invasiveness - based on fluorescence NANOscopy and VIBrational microscopy” (or ‘NanoVIB’ for short), the project will shed new light on how superbugs can cause disease, thereby providing the basis for the development of new antimicrobials

to treat bacterial infections.

In a bid to understand how bacteria cause disease, the European Commission has granted this health consortium €5,635,529 via the Photonics Public Private Partnership to build this super-resolution microscope.

Ten-fold Resolution While super-resolution microscopes already exist, the NanoVIB team proposes to make a new device with unrivalled resolution capable of revealing the intricate, detailed molecular mechanisms underlying inter-and intracellular processes and disease.

Project coordinator, Professor Jerker Widengren, said: “We expect our new microscope prototype to be a next-generation super-resolution system, making it possible to image cellular proteins marked with fluorescence emitters (fluorophores) with a ten-fold higher resolution than with any other fluorescence microscopy technique.

With the help of advanced laser, detector and microscopy technologies that will be developed in the project, super-resolution localisation patterns of specific proteins will be overlaid with lightscattering images, correlating these patterns with local structures and chemical conditions in the bacteria.

“Using laser light, this new microscope will show how bacterial proteins localise on the surface of bacteria, allowing scientists to study the interaction of the pathogen with immune and host cells. It works based on the so-called MINFLUX concept, where infrared laser light excites fluorophore-labelled molecules in a triangulated manner – leading to an increased resolution.

The user can then fine-tune the microscopic imaging to previously unimaginable resolutions.

“MINFLUX microscopy will make it possible to resolve how certain pneumococcal surface proteins are distributed on the bacteria under different cell division stages, and whether these proteins are localised in such a way that specific, extra sensitive surface regions of the bacteria, a critical step of the cell division, are protected from immune activation,” said Widengren.

European Research Ecosystem The NanoVIB team took their inspiration from a previous EUfunded project, Fluodiamon, which analysed how specific proteins are spatially distributed in breast and prostate cancer cells compared to those in corresponding non-cancer cells, demonstrating a new basis for cancer diagnosis.

“The goal of the NanoVIB project is to retrieve information, which is not within reach by any other microscopic or photonics-based technique. We will demonstrate how cellular nanoscale protein localisation patterns can be resolved, which will help us reveal bacterial disease mechanisms and are likely to be of considerable relevance for many other diseases.

“These studies could shed new light on how specific surface proteins of these bacteria are spatially distributed on the cells and provide important evidence that the virulence (capacity to generate disease) and invasiveness of these bacteria are strongly coupled to such spatial distribution patterns.”

The project will conclude in 2024 and includes six partners from three countries: Kungliga Tekniska Hoegskolan (KTH), the coordinator, Karolinska Institutet (Sweden); Institut für Nanophotonik , Abberior Instruments GMBH, APE Angewandte Physik und Elektronik (Germany); and Pi Imaging Technology (Switzerland).

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Increasing food and drink producers’ resilience in the face of unprecedented manufacturing challenges Disrupted supply chains; CO2 shortages; labour challenges; energy price hikes; HGV driver issues; a lack of transport fuel… When the UK emerged from its pandemicinduced hibernation, few business owners could have predicted that such a wave of national crises would be there to greet them. Food and drink producers have been hit particularly hard, with headlines such as ‘Christmas dinner could be cancelled ’, ‘CO2 supply shock could lead to food shortages in Britain ’, and ‘Gas shortage hits UK food supplies ’ illustrating the scale of the issues currently impacting the industry. Here, four leading equipment manufacturers outline the ways in which their solutions can help food and beverage businesses to remain resilient throughout 2022 and beyond…

Optimising CO2 use One of the first casualties of record gas prices across Europe was a halt in production of carbon dioxid

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(CO2); a by-product of fertiliser production. Essential to food and drink manufacturing, CO2 is used in a variety of applications: to carbonate drinks; to stun animals before slaughter; to extend the shelf life of packaged products; to promote vegetable growth in greenhouses; and to keep food fresh during transport. This pause in production not only caused supply issues for some retailers but also saw a five-fold increase in the cost of CO2, from £200 to £1,000 per tonne .

As a result, food and drink producers have become increasingly vigilant over their use of CO2; it is now more businesscritical than ever that the volume they do have is optimised, and that none is wasted. For AVE UK, this has translated into increased demand by water, beverage, beer and cider producers for its carbonation unit, which is manufactured by Priamo; like AVE, also part of the Della

Toffola Group. Optimised for superior CO2 absorption, it accurately measures and doses the exact amount of CO2 required for every application, significantly reducing CO2 overdosing.

“Our inline carbonation unit comprises a chiller to promote better CO2 absorption, as well as a smart sensor linked to a feedback loop. This enables it to analyse in real time exactly how much CO2 it needs to dose to achieve the correct product specification,” explains Steve Bradley, Sales Director for AVE UK. “Not only is product accuracy and consistency guaranteed, but CO2 use is precision-optimised; drinks producers can be assured that every gram of their valuable gas is being used as intended.”

Cutting transport costs AVE UK has also noticed an increase in enquiries for blow

moulding machines. “With fuel price hikes and HGV driver shortages directly impacting manufacturers’ bottom line, it is vital that every journey is maximised,” says Steve.

“Yet when drinks producers order multiple pallets of empty PET bottles, they are effectively paying to transport fresh air. It can be more cost effective to produce the bottles in-house, using a linear stretch injection blow moulding machine. The producer then only needs to pay for the transportation of the preforms; a single pallet can accommodate more than 25,000 preforms, compared to just 2,400 fully formed PET bottles. This not only equates to significant haulage savings and a reduction in transport emissions, but also frees up space in the warehouse.”

Mitigating against supply chain issues The shortage of HGV drivers is just one of the causes of the supply chain crisis seen in recent months.

Brexit and the pandemic have prompted many European workers to return home – figures from Indeed reveal the number of EU citizens looking for work in Britain has fallen by a third since Brexit – resulting in a shortfall of around 100,000 lorry drivers . High energy and transport costs, onerous Covid and Brexit-related border checks, and even individual events such as the Suez Canal blockage of March 2021 have also contributed to supply chain disruption, particularly affecting goods coming into the UK from Europe.

One obvious way to mitigate against this is to buy British. Metal detection specialist Fortress Technology manufactures its highspec food inspection systems at its factory in Banbury, Oxfordshire and has seen enquiries increase due to its ability to fulfil orders more quickly than some foreign counterparts. “The Covid hiatus saw many projects put on hold,” says Phil Brown, Managing Director.

“That pent-up demand is now translating into an influx of live enquiries for our food-grade x-ray and metal detection solutions, from

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companies that are looking for a swift turnaround. The fact that our equipment is British made, using local suppliers, mitigates against the supply chain fragility that is affecting distributors of European equipment. Certainly, our customers are relieved to learn that the long lead-times and import delays reported across the sector aren’t an issue when dealing with Fortress.”

Efficient energy use Alongside supply chain interruptions, another challenge facing food and drink manufacturers is the increasing cost of energy; research firm Cornwall Insight is forecasting UK energy bills to rise by as much as 30% in 2022. Food and drink producers are therefore turning to energy-efficient solutions in greater numbers than ever before, in a bid to protect their profit margins as well as the planet. A main contributor to food producers’ energy costs are compressed air systems. Used to operate equipment such as pneumatic controls, air tools, pumps, valve actuators, robotics, pistons and larger-scale processes, compressed air typically accounts for up to 40% of a manufacturing facility’s total energy bill, while leak rates can exceed 50% on some systems.

Fortress’s Raptor Combi – an affordable metal detector and checkweighing conveyor system – has been designed with an innovative reject mechanism that has energy efficiency at its core.

“Most reject mechanisms are pneumatic, running up high energy bills due to their continuous need for compressed air,” explains Phil.

“By contrast, the Raptor Combi features an electric mechanism that only uses power when a reject is identified, saving £4,000 a year in energy costs when compared with compressed air alternatives.”

Focus on sustainability Reducing compressed air consumption was also the driver behind the redesign of Brillopak’s 22

UniPAKer robotic crate packing series, which now has vacuum generators built into the endeffector head. As a result, air is drawn into the centre of the head and fed to each of the five generators, to deliver a more consistent, targeted and faster airflow. Tested against earlygeneration end-effectors, Brillopak reports a 45% reduction in air use on the new-version UniPAKer when picking up and moving products of the same weight into retail crates.

Other sustainability improvements to the UniPAKer include: the use of servo motors that only require power when operational; reducing the weight of the end-effectors and other moving parts to decrease power requirement; and employing energy-efficient three-phase conveyor motors. “Our focus on sustainability has reduced the UniPAKer’s power consumption by 10%,” confirms David Jahn, Brillopak’s Managing Director. “Not only that, but it has also improved its performance, as the lighter, smaller end-effectors result in a faster pick speed while retaining presentation.”

Solving labour challenges However, among the numerous challenges facing food producers, one stands out against the rest: labour. The NFU reports an estimated 500,000 vacancies in the food and drink sector resulting in crops being left to rot in the fields, abattoirs operating shorter weeks and meat and poultry processing sites cutting back production.

Automation has long been heralded as part of the solution but until now, some manufacturers have been reluctant to invest in robotics.

For Stuart Coulton of Omron, this current crisis could be a tipping point: “Food manufacturing is in the grip of a severe labour shortage.

By replacing repetitive, mundane tasks such as picking and placing, or palletising, with robots, companies can increase their overall efficiency and decrease production uncertainty – after all, a robot does not suffer from RSI or burnout and will never get sick. And with staffing vacancies an issue at every department across food manufacturing plants, production line employees can then be redeployed to other more businesscritical areas.”

Protection against unpredictability If the last two years have taught us anything, it is to expect the unexpected. As Stuart explains, businesses that incorporate robotic solutions into their arsenal will also find themselves better able to cope with a rapidly changing economic landscape: “Robotics can help food and drink businesses mitigate against the extreme peaks and troughs in demand that we have witnessed in recent times. This is because, if correctly specified, robotic solutions provide a flexibility that cannot be matched with human labour. However, it is important to work with a reputable automation specialist to prevent against overspecification (meaning the solution will be energy inefficient and not cost-effective) or under-specification (which will prevent the end-user from being able to flex up to meet increased demand). A correctly-specified robotics solution will increase food producers’ agility and help to make the capacity curve more linear.”

FLIR A50 and A70 Thermal Cameras Offer Turnkey Solutions for Efficient Data Analysis When decision makers seek to integrate new hardware into their automation process, they are often looking at a few key areas: the ease of use, price point, features, and the ability to utilize the hardware at multiple points throughout their system. The new A50 and A70 thermal cameras come in three options— Smart, Streaming, and Research & Development to fit the needs of professionals across a variety of industries—from manufacturing to utilities to science.

Featuring a thermal resolution of 464 × 348 (A50) or 640 × 480 (A70), professionals can deploy the A50 or A70 cameras in a variety of capacities. These include condition monitoring programs to maximize uptime and minimize cost through planned maintenance, or when used in early fire detection applications to safeguard the lives of workers and secure the profitability of the business by protecting materials and assets. With improved temperature measurement accuracy of ±2°C, professionals can rely on consistent readings over a period of time, or through varying environmental factors, eliminating any guesswork from data analysis.

The IP66 rating for both the A50 and A70 provides protection from dust, oil, and water, making the cameras ideal for tough, industrial environments. This ruggedness is especially helpful when the camera is being moved from one application to the next. Whether the camera is fix-mounted inspecting a production line or when required for bench testing, professionals benefit from its versatility.

A50/70 Smart Designed for condition monitoring programs to reduce inspection times, improve production efficiency, and increase product reliability, the A50 and A70 Smart cameras introduce “on camera / on edge” smart functionality. This means temperature measurement and analysis can

be done on the camera, easily and effectively without the need for a PC. These cameras allow automation system solution providers to hit the ground running with a camera that is easy to add, configure, and operate in HMI/SCADA systems (with REST API, MQTT and Modbus master functionality).

A50/70 Image Streaming Built for process and quality control, the A50/A70 Image Streaming cameras improve through-put time and the quality of what is being produced, all while reducing operating costs. With its GigE Vision and GenICam compatibility, professionals can simply plug the camera into their PC and choose their preferred software. In most cases, the addition of A50 or A70 Image Streaming cameras complement machine vision systems that looks at defects such as size, with the A50 or A70 providing temperature variance in these products.

A50/70 Research & Development Kit Primarily used as a research and development solution, the A50 and A70 Research & Development Kit provides an easy entry point into thermal imaging analysis for applications within academia, material studies, and electronic and semi-conductor research. The Research & Development Kit include the Advanced Image Streaming versions of the A50 and A70 cameras and FLIR Research Studio software for camera control, live image display, recording, and post processing for decision support.

Expert Viewpoints: “In addition to its small, compact packaging, which makes it easier to mount these cameras inside of machinery with tight spaces, we are excited about the A50/A70’s IP66 rating, a feature that eliminates the

need to add an enclosure around the camera when it is deployed it in tough environments. Another added benefit is having the ability to inspect and analyze data through the camera’s Wi-Fi capability, eliminating the need for users to run wires through a manufacturing facility from a computer to the piece of equipment that is being inspected.” - Roy Ray, vice president, Emitted Energy “The launch of the new A50/ A70 camera is really exciting for FLIR customers. Its new software capabilities now allow for dual functionality with two different spectrums - thermal temperature monitoring and visual inspection within the same camera. This adds an extra level of functionality to new and existing integrated FLIR systems. Users can combine thermal functionality, to check packaging seals for example, with visual inspection of the packaging itself. This can now be completed by one camera without the need for any additional hardware - just a simple software change.” - John Dunlop, founder and chief technical officer, Bytronic Vision Automation “We are excited about the launch of the new FLIR A50/A70 thermal imaging camera and the value it will add for our customers. With its expanded communication capabilities, ViperVision can do more with the camera information we’ve always had. The more data and more ways to access that data the customers have, the better. We are now able to take the same critical data that has always been provided

by FLIR cameras and make it more available and thus more useful to our customers. Whether this means integration with VMS and security systems or more plant control networks (DCS, PLC, SCADA), we are now able to accomplish multiple tasks simultaneously and more efficiently.” - Andy Beck, co-founder and co-owner, Viper Imaging

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15% increase in personalised videos propels CitNOW past 60m video milestone CitNOW, the digital communications specialist, has passed the landmark total of 60 million videos produced using its technology. The milestone was reached as CitNOW saw a 15% increase in the number of videos created by the automotive retail industry over the past two years, with an average of one million videos now being produced per month.

retail experience, also reveals that almost nine out of 10 (87%) respondents prefer to start their car research journey online on a car manufacturer or retailer website, a 10% increase from 2020. With 84% of car buyers finding video a valuable part of the customer buying experience, a personalised video response to an initial query can have a massive influence on the success of the transition from online to offline interaction.

For many retailers, video is one of the most preferred communications tools for engaging with car buyers right from the enquiry phase. Data from a recent CitNOW Group report, ‘The Ultimate Digital Customer Journey’, shows that 72% of car buyers under 45 years old would be more likely to buy a vehicle if they received a personalised video of it.

For car buyers aged 18-24 this figure rises to 83%, suggesting that the rising popularity of video is set to continue.

“With the car buying journey increasingly starting online, it’s important that retailers address new buying behaviours”, comments Alistair Horsburgh, Chief Revenue Officer at CitNOW Group. “They need the flexibility in their digital communications strategies to allow sales staff to respond to queries in a timely manner that is appropriate for each individual and that enables them to build an emotional connection.

The report, which examines how technology is redefining the

Our latest survey revealed an even split between car buyers who

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said they still want the in-showroom experience and those who don’t see it as a priority. With each customer’s pathway to purchase becoming increasingly unique, it’s crucial that retailers utilise the digital tools available to effectively engage with potential customers and deliver the right journey for their needs, from first enquiry to purchase.”

To help retailers adapt more easily to changing consumer behaviours, CitNOW will be rolling out free upgrades to its existing iOS users by the end of 2021. The next generation apps represent the biggest ever update to the CitNOW mobile platform and offer a more streamlined and intuitive interface for its Sales, Workshop, Web and Bodyshop products, to help retailers progress further into an era of ecommerce-focused car retailing.

Further findings from CitNOW’s latest report, ‘The Ultimate Digital Customer Journey’, can be downloaded at www.citnow.com

How to specify a motion solution for a wheeled robot For applications that require speed and efficiency of movement, wheeled robots can be advantageous compared to legged robots. Their simpler design can also mean lower cost and reduced maintenance. To achieve these benefits, the motion system that powers a wheeled robot must be carefully specified according to the application requirements and environment, taking into account durability, efficiency, and noise.

Pradeep Deshmane, Principal Engineer - Gearbox, R&D, Portescap, and Manoj Pujari, Lead Engineer – Product & Development, Portescap, discuss the motion requirements for wheeled robots.

A major benefit of robots is their ability to complete tasks that may be difficult or hazardous for humans to perform. Many such applications rely on wheel-driven robots. From a manufacturers perspective they’re easier to design, build and program.

For the user, providing the terrain is not heavily obstacle-strewn, wheeled robots can be faster, more efficient, and more resilient. As such, uses for wheeled robots range from pipeline inspection to healthcare environments and even domestic use.

Integral to a wheeled robot is its motor and gearbox system. At a fundamental level, the system has to be compact and light weight and able to generate the required torque for movement across the specified environment. Frequently used in tough environments, they’ve also got to be highly durable. For many applications, whether military surveillance or in a hospital, noise emissions must also be minimal.

Critically, wheeled robots also require high energy efficiency with a low current consumption.

For these reasons, coreless brushed or brushless DC motors coupled 26

with compact planetary gearboxes are frequently specified. As the motion system is required to fit within a footprint of less than 40 mm diameter, mini motors and gearboxes are required. Despite the compact size, the gearbox output torque must typically handle 4 to 8 Nm at speeds between 50 to 150 rpm.

Specifying the motion solution To determine the specification, start by calculating the output torque required. This must factor in the desired acceleration, as well as wheel diameter and mass.

Torque requirements necessary to ascend gradients or overcome obstacles must also be added to the equation and finally, friction and efficiency of travel should also be taken into account.

Following calculation of the torque requirement, the wheels’ rotational speed can be determined, and appropriate selection of the motor and gearbox can then be made based on the output frequency.

Typically, the higher the operating voltage, the higher the motor’s speed capability.

While sufficient packaging space must be provided for the encoder, brake, motor and gearing, an important factor if the motor stack is enclosed is operating temperature and avoidance of overheating.

Motor capacity and heat dissipation techniques may need to be considered in such circumstances to ensure reliability when the robot is deployed in the field.

Motion solution development for a wheeled robot Portescap recently provided the motion solution for a four-wheel drive robot. With two pairs of powered wheels, each pair turns in the same direction. It’s vital that the motion system controls both pairs to run at the same speed, otherwise overall robot speed will be reduced and steering won’t be aligned. Unlike differential steering that uses separately driven wheels, this four-wheel drive solution has

a differential steering mechanism that requires only a single motor, which reduces footprint, energy use and cost.

The solution was achieved using a Portescap Brushed DC 35 GLT motor and a planetary gearbox with a 99.8 total gearbox ratio. In a packaging of just 32 mm diameter and 115 mm in length, the gearbox output torque capacity reaches 8 Nm with an output speed of 80 rpm.

With a life expectancy of 1,000 hours, the motion system can withstand temperatures up to 125 °C. These results provide reliable, durable motion to a variety of wheeled robot applications.

Specialist application engineering Terrain can be a challenge for wheeled robots, particularly among rocky environments, sharp declines, or areas with low friction. While technology such as tracks with a differential drive and skid steer four-wheel drive are increasingly used, techniques to optimise existing motion solutions can also be deployed to increase durability, efficiency, and reduce noise.

For example, needle roller bearings can be introduced to increase durability and efficiency by avoiding scuffing failures and providing smooth rotation of planet gears. Ensuring the gearbox has the optimum teeth combination with lower torsional forces can also reduce noise, which can be improved with an advanced acoustic simulation to predict noise emission.

To achieve the optimum motion system for a wheeled robot design, it’s crucial that it is specified according to analysis of the application requirements and the environment in which the robot will operate.

Portescap’s engineers can provide a range of solutions for robotic motion, with engineers able to create customised designs for precise needs. www.portescap.com 27

The future of high performance leading edge launches ‘High Performance Insights’ Through the multitude of complex challenges organisations have had to struggle with over the past two-years, some haven’t just survived, they’ve thrived. They have accelerated their growth, scale and performance exponentially. Others have simply managed to maintain a holding pattern and are now getting ready to ‘go-again’ in 2022.

In a bid to better understand how these high performance organisations managed to adapt, overcome, and prosper, Leading Edge, an organisation that develops authentic leadership and maximises high performance teams in a complex world, conducted research with over 250 industry leaders across a multitude of sectors from management to engineering, sports to fashion.

They also engaged with senior leaders across some of the most recognisable global and highperforming organisations including Levi’s, Mars, Glanbia Performance

Nutrition, Jaguar Land Rover, Sally Beauty, West Ham United, England and Wales Cricket Board, and The Football Association.

The research is culminated into the ‘High Performance Insights’ which explores the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on organisations and examines how senior leaders are in a position to implement positive changes that will help shape the future of business performance.

Through this extensive research, Leading Edge identified five key drivers - the core contributors to high performance success.

- Hardwiring Belonging.

Supercharging your Diversity & Inclusion strategy to create sustainable success.

The number 1 barrier to developing the necessary culture change is a fundamental lack of understanding of the benefits D&I actually bring. As a result, many organisations don’t know

what to do or how to do it and – in their panic to ‘do something’ – end up focusing solely on creating ‘special interest groups’ and, often, devolving responsibility for change to those groups to champion.

- Connected Hybrid Working.

Moving from flexible working to high performance hybrid solutions.

Two years ago, long before the pandemic entered our lives and daily news cycle, professionals already identified hybrid working as critical to their organisations: more than half (61%) said it was of high or critical importance. But, whilst a great number of organisations think they’ve ‘mastered’ the art of hybrid working during the pandemic, our research found expensive mistakes are already being made and huge opportunities are still not being seized.

- Becoming Change Enabled.

Confronting, adapting to, and growing through constant change.

The research uncovered that the biggest barrier to dealing with ‘disruptive change’ is actually the existing internal disconnect within teams and organisations; the lack of ability to embrace disruption as ‘practising futurists’ who are able to engage and embrace in these transformations.

Whilst a third of organisations (31%) are focusing on customer-led change, they don’t have the capacity or capability to deal with the biggest barrier that’s much closer to home: engagement of their teams to navigate change.

- Mental Agility. Proactive wellbeing focus to reframe the mental health conversation.

Whilst COVID-related concerns were, understandably, high on the

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list of mental health challenges for leaders (32% noted this as a key concern), it was distressing to see the current levels of stress (29%), depression (29%), burnout (24%), and anger (20%).

The Leading Edge research has found that high performance teams – whilst in no way impervious to the mental health challenges we all face – had far more focus on ‘mental agility’ and ‘performance wellbeing’ as part of their routine performance metrics and support.

- Leading with Love. Reframing our relationships to authentic high performance.

The research found that, currently, only around 18% of organisations lead with an empathetic, loving, and people-driven mindset –– less than half the amount (39%) who chose a more rational, data-driven approach.

Even though over a fifth of professionals think the idea of ‘leading with love’ sounds like “airyfairy tree hugging stuff”, the reality is that using empathetic engagement, fostering compassion amongst senior leadership, and building a caring culture all translates into tangible, real-world results.

Patrick Marr, Owner Director of Leading Edge, said: “At Leading Edge, we are inspired by high performance. The High Performance Index explains the key contributing factors to high performing organisations and showcases how our expert team at Leading Edge can coach leaders in any sector to building high performance into your strategy.

“The way we work has changed forever, but, as our research and this report has shown, these changes will be for the better.

The pandemic may have upset the established order, but it has provided a genuine chance for us all to reframe, renew, and revitalise the way we approach work. This report aims to gives you gives you compelling insight into high performance for 2022 and beyond.”

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KUKA expects positive financial year 2021 and jointly with Midea KUKA and its majority owner, the Midea Group, have defined a joint growth vision. This way, both companies are laying the foundation for a leading role in global robot-based automation by 2025 and beyond.

Based on the strategy, KUKA will strongly focus on bringing together its robot- ics expertise and application know-how globally and across all parts of the company to further improve its products and market position. This includes an overarching portfolio with regionally adapted products and solutions for growth industries in robotics and logistics such as e-commerce and retail. Fast-growing markets for KUKA and Swisslog will further be strengthened in a targeted manner and coordination between countries will be even closer aligned.

To this end, investments in research and development in Augsburg are planned to be increased by at least 15% by 2025. As part of the strategy, Midea is also planning to del- ist KUKA from the stock exchange following a so-called “Squeeze-Out” process. Midea currently already holds a stake of more than 95% of all KUKA shares.

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A shared vision for KUKA and Augsburg After a difficult economic environment in recent years and the massive impact of the COVID crisis, KUKA is once again posting strong business results and benefits from the increasing global demand for automation. “KUKA has achieved the turnaround and has embarked on a clear growth path. We expect sales of around €3.1 billion and EBIT of around €60 million in 2021. Initial indications also give us reason to be optimistic about the development of business beyond 2021. For 2022 we are optimistic that this positive trend will continue,” said Peter Mohnen, CEO of KUKA AG. “Our goal is a leading role in robotbased automation by 2025,” said Peter Mohnen. “To achieve this, we need a clear focus on technology development and innovation, as well as the full support of Midea.

That is why we are jointly pursuing a long-term strategy for KUKA. Now, we have set the framework for it, with a clear focus on operations.

I wel- come Midea’s commitment that enables us to substantially increase our R&D spending in Augsburg to drive KUKA’s growth

even more effectively. This decision will also enable KUKA to grow at our home base and to attract and retain talent as an attractive and future-oriented employer. With the growth plan 2025, we have put in place a shared vision for the way forward that goes well beyond the end of the existing Investment Agreement.”

This growth plan is fully aligned with KUKA’s ambition to make automation simpler, more intuitive, and thus more available to everyone by 2030. Programming a robot will then be as easy as working on a laptop or mobile device today. Therefore, KUKA is work- ing on an operating system of the future with focus on simple operation and intuitive handling of automation solutions.

Agility and efficiency for the next phase of growth “Global robotics and automation continue to be a highly dynamic growth industry, par- ticularly in China and Asia. Products and services for robot-based automation and logis- tics are in greater demand than ever. With our shared growth plan, we are seizing this momentum: A unified

shareholder structure is important for this long-term growth plan. By taking the partnership between KUKA and Midea to a new level, we will accelerate sustainable growth and substantially increase KUKA’s competitiveness along the way,” said Dr Andy Gu, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of KUKA AG and Vice President of Midea Group.

The current listing of KUKA does not entail any material benefit for KUKA as the average daily trading volume is low.

Moreover, given its low free float, KUKA is no longer part of important indices. As a delisted company KUKA will be released of the administrative requirements of a listing and will be more agile and better focused on strategy implementation and operating business.

“With the joint decision to take the company private, we are also paving the way for greater efficiency, speed and competitiveness to achieve KUKA’s growth targets in Eu- rope, the Americas and especially in the growth region of China. We will continue to respect and honor the terms and conditions of the Investment Agreement and the Ringfencing Agreement concluded in 2016. The ‘A’ in KUKA will continue to stand for Augsburg – we recognize this as a responsible and long-term oriented owner,” explained Dr Andy Gu.

According to the terms of the Investment Agreement signed between Midea and KUKA in 2016, no domination agreement shall be concluded, and KUKA’s headquarters shall remain in Augsburg.

Augsburg headquarter as R&D center and manufacturing base Augsburg will also remain the KUKA research and development center for cutting-edge technology, with key innovation projects such as developing the new operating system and ecosystem iiQKA. The Augsburg production site will further be retained as an inte- gral part of the KUKA manufacturing base for EMEA and other regions.

Michael Leppek, Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board and Employee Representa- tive on the Supervisory Board said: “A compromise has been reached with the new strategy. We are giving up a hardly effective stock market listing in exchange for a com- mon growth plan and business vision, as well as long-term commitments for KUKA with a focus on production and technologies.

This focus is a priority to secure KUKA’s future. The goal of the agreement is to protect the Augsburg site and thus jobs in the region beyond 2023.”

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Electric truck pioneers, TEVVA, appoint EVera Recruitment to source dozens of engineers EVera Recruitment, today, announced they had been tasked

by TEVVA to identify and recruit dozens of engineers across a range of key disciplines, including; manufacturing, quality and maintenance as TEVVA prepares to begin UK manufacturing of their e-Trucks in July 2022.

EVera is Europe’s only dedicated battery and EV recruiter. Founded

by Steve Doyle, EVera works with leading gigafactories, battery manufacturers, OEMs, EV startups and scaleups to identify skills gaps within the businesses and recruit the right candidates with very particular skill sets for this rapidly expanding sector of the UK automotive industry.

EVera’s exclusive recruitment partnership with TEVVA has delivered a 200% growth in the workforce with over 80 new employees joining in 2021. This is a huge achievement by both parties when many companies in the electric vehicle sector are struggling to build the teams they need to fully realise the growth opportunities.

EVera Founder and CEO Steve Doyle “My team and I are thrilled to be supporting TEVVA on their exciting growth trajectory.

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The EV industry in the UK is a very vibrant sector right now, and the job opportunities are second to none. Never before have these skillsets been so in demand”.

TEVVA Human Resources Kay Jarvis “We’re delighted to be working with our partner, EVERA Recruitment, on the search for many more employees to join our growing workforce as we gear up to begin manufacturing here in the UK, in July 2022”.

TEVVA is a UK-based e-truck company, whose revolutionary range extension technology allows

its medium and heavy-duty trucks to go further than the competition, at a lower cost. TEVVA is leading the drive to zero-emissions freight with innovative trucks that go wheel-to-wheel with traditional diesel vehicles. The hydrogen fuel cell (H2FC) range extending technology boosts the already class-leading battery range of 160 miles 9250 km) to 310 miles 9500km) and delivers zero environmental impact. By using hydrogen as a range extender, not as a primary fuel source, TEVVA are re-imagining hydrogen as a sustainable fuel source for long-range freight transport.

Fanuc supports young engineers at industrial robotics final FANUC UK is sponsoring the Industrial Robotics Final of WorldSkills UK, as part of its wider commitment to supporting the development of the next generation of British and Irish robotics engineers.

The competition sees over 400 students and apprentices vie for the title of National Skills Champion across as many as 64 disciplines, with the Industrial Robotics Final set to take place from 17 – 19 November in Ballymena, Northern Ireland.

Four teams, Hammer, Basher and Sparky; The Athletes; 2 Dudes 1 Robot; and The Cyborgs, will work hands-on with a real FANUC industrial robot as part of the final.

Each team will be tested on their programming and operation skills, with 2019 runner-up and FANUC Engineering Technician Apprentice Romi Rai due to sit on the judging panel. She will be joined by fellow FANUC employees Paul Coombes and Rachel Kenning.

Four teams, Hammer, Basher and Sparky; The Athletes; 2 Dudes 1 Robot; and The Cyborgs, will work hands-on with a real FANUC industrial robot as part of the final.

Each team will be tested on their programming and operation skills, with 2019 runner-up and FANUC Engineering Technician Apprentice Romi Rai due to sit on the judging panel. She will be joined by fellow FANUC employees Paul Coombes and Rachel Kenning.

me up to speed and ready for the competition. I learned not only a broad range of technical skills but also leadership, time management and teamwork. The competition helped me to develop both in professional and personal aspects, and I encourage all future apprentices to give it a go.”

With the last WorldSkills UK tournament taking place in 2019, as many as 3,000 students and apprentices registered to take part in the competition’s return this year.

The winners will be announced as part of virtual medal ceremony that will be broadcast live from Channel 4’s ‘Packed Lunch’ studio at 4pm on Friday 26 November.

Tom Bouchier, Managing Director of FANUC UK, added: “We’re really pleased to be continuing our partnership with WorldSkills following the success of the inaugural Robot Systems Integration challenge in 2019.

Supporting the development of the next generation will be key to the growth of the robotics sector in the UK and Ireland and closing the current automation skills gap.

“The pandemic has limited the number of opportunities available to young people in robotics and engineering, so we’re happy to be providing the chance for our

finalists to work closely with real FANUC robots. This kind of experience will be instrumental to their personal success as well as that of the sector as a whole.”

Ben Blackledge, Deputy Chief Executive Officer at WorldSkills, concluded: “I want to offer my congratulations to all those that took part in our programme this year, especially the finalists. After a year without competitions due to the pandemic it was really encouraging to see so many people back involved this year.

“Our competitions and competition-based development programmes equip apprentices and students with the lifelong, world-class skills that will help increase UK productivity and competitiveness.

“We are really excited to be taking the show on the road this year with finals hosted by colleges, training providers and employers across the UK. We hope seeing the finals will inspire young people at those venues to keep developing their technical and employability skills and recognise what can be achieved by developing excellence through skills.”

For more information on FANUC, visit www.fanuc.eu

Speaking on her experience in the competition, Romi said: “I was not too familiar with robot programming when I was first told that I had a chance to participate in the WorldSkills UK event back in 2019. It was definitely nervewrecking but at the same I was excited to explore this new venture.

“FANUC supported me through training and mentorship to get 33

Herga 6256 industrial footswitch with pressure activated override and manual release offers increased safety Herga Technology’s 6256 series heavy-duty footswitch range is aimed at manual control tasks on industrial machinery where durability and consistent reliability are essential.

The modular footswitch is available in single- or multi-pedal versions where a comprehensive selection of electrical power and switching options and a broad range of accessories ensure maximum working flexibility. For applications in especially hazardous environments where additional safety is vital the 6256 is available with a pressure point actuated cut-off feature that can be used to mitigate emergency situations.

Should the operator actuate the pedal beyond the pressure point, the switching contact is broken,

and the process is interrupted.

With the footswitch locked an unintended restart is prevented. To reset the footswitch and re-enable the process the operator must first trigger the top mounted manual release button.

This version of the 6256 is also available with an optional feature that adds a mechanical resistance in the actuation path of the pedal, producing tactile feedback so that the operator can sense the instant the footswitch pressure changes.

As well as its use in hazardous control tasks, the ‘DA’ feature is also used for processes that benefit from two-stage switching systems with different operational settings.

Herga’s economically priced 6256 series heavy duty footswitches

includes other optional addedsafety features. A built-in emergency stop fitted on the footswitch or on an extended pole arrangement allows increased machine safety close to the operator. A pedal lock version will prevent unwanted operation where the switching process needs to be disabled or restricted from improper handling.

Other accessories and options available for the 6256 series include a snap-on protective guard that accommodates safety shoe use whilst multiple footswitch expansion is made easy through an interlocking multipedal base link kit. Washdown and wet environmental use to EN 60529 can be met with an IP67 sealing kit. Extended base plates provide increased stability and pole & handle attachments make for increased portability and ease of operation.

Thanks to its modular design the 6256 offers a range of electrical switching options. These cover slow break & make and snap break & make to AC-15 6A 250V / DC-12 6A 24V (UL) as well as high power rating up to 25A 125/250V AC. 1HP 125/250V AC (with double pole change over contacts - 2 switches). Potentiometer and pneumatic versions are also available.

Built from high-impact injection moulded ABS, the modular design offers toughness and durability. The 6256 is featured in a demonstration video showing its calibre in a series of drop tests against competitive steel footswitches.

For full specifications for the complete 6256 series range visit www.herga.com , email sales@ herga.com or call +44 (0)1284 701422.

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All-in-one embedded vision platform with new tools and functions At IDS, image processing with artificial intelligence does not just mean that AI runs directly on cameras and users also have enormous design options through vision apps. Rather, with the IDS NXT ocean embedded vision platform, customers receive all the necessary, coordinated tools and workflows to realise their own AI vision applications without prior knowledge and to run them directly on the IDS NXT industrial cameras. Now follows the next free software update for the AI package. In addition to the topic of user-friendliness, the focus is also on making artificial intelligence clear and comprehensible for the user.

An all-in-one system such as IDS NXT ocean, which has integrated computing power and artificial intelligence thanks to the “deep ocean core” developed by IDS, is ideally suited for entry into AI Vision. It requires no prior knowledge of deep

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learning or camera programming.

The current software update makes setting up, deploying and controlling the intelligent cameras in the IDS NXT cockpit even easier.

For this purpose, among other things, an ROI editor is integrated with which users can freely draw the image areas to be evaluated and configure, save and reuse them as custom grids with many parameters. In addition, the new tools Attention Maps and Confusion Matrix illustrate how the AI works in the cameras and what decisions it makes. This helps to clarify the process and enables the user to evaluate the quality of a trained neural network and to improve it through targeted retraining. Data security also plays an important role in the industrial use of artificial intelligence. As of the current update, communication between IDS NXT cameras and system components can therefore

be encrypted via HTTPS. Just get started with the IDS NXT ocean Creative Kit. Anyone who wants to test the industrial-grade embedded vision platform IDS NXT ocean and evaluate its potential for their own applications should take a look at the IDS NXT ocean Creative Kit. It provides customers with all the components they need to create, train and run a neural network. In addition to an IDS NXT industrial camera with 1.6 MP Sony sensor, lens, cable and tripod adapter, the package includes six months’ access to the AI training software IDS NXT lighthouse. Currently, IDS is offering the set in a special promotion at particularly favourable conditions. Promotion page: For more information visit: www.ids-nxt.com

Selecting hardware to embrace The Smart City Movement Our cities have always been places where new technologies are rapidly adopted and deployed to enable new modes of living, working and social interaction. The rise of advanced digital devices and communications tools, growth in electric vehicle (EV) use and ecommerce home delivery — all these factors are driving the creation of the “smart city.”

infrastructure to support the transformation. The arrival of advanced technologies like 5G and the exponential growth predicted for applications such as smart lighting, electric vehicle charging and city bike rental schemes is inviting industrial designers to consider a new mix of design challenges.

These growing smart cities need engineered equipment and

As this new technology is deployed, there is a need for well-designed

and secure enclosures to protect the equipment. These enclosures must be effectively and seamlessly integrated into existing urban environments, and they must be regularly accessed by both technical personnel and the general public. Access needs to be highly secure and well managed, yet at the same time easy to use and cleanly integrated into the built environment.

There are a range of best practices that can be followed for adding engineered access hardware to smart city equipment and infrastructure, including the role that usability, security and longevity of this equipment plays in the design process. Selecting the right hardware can enhance this equipment, as well as the competitive value of enclosure technologies.

5G drives smart city growth One of the most significant smart city drivers is the rapid deployment of a 5G communications infrastructure.

5G provides data transfer rates many times faster than prior platforms, significant reduction of latency, high bandwidth and greater opportunities for connectivity and reliability.

5G cells are much smaller, with dimensions that make attaching them to walls and streetlamp poles — or even integrating them into the poles themselves — the most common method expected when positioning this equipment. There are even designs that will mount 5G network components on the underside of manhole covers.

With the introduction of 5G, networking equipment and other valuable infrastructures are now located closer to the end user, so the need for advanced physical security to protect this infrastructure is crucial.

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Nevertheless, industrial designers need to be equally aware of ways to incorporate access systems cleanly into enclosures so that they seamless merge into our built cityscapes, through the use of hidden hinges and elegantly designed latches that complement industrial design.

Environmental hardening is also important; latches designed with compression can ensure that access panels are tightly sealed to protect against weather-related damage.

Electronic access solutions (EAS) also provide enhanced physical security for 5G enclosures. An electronic access solution is composed of three primary components: an access control or input device, an electromechanical lock and a system for monitoring the status of the access point.

EAS platforms offer security with a range of price points and design features. The most basic form is

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a simple RFID credential, used by many telecom service providers and contractors.

The most secure access credential — which is gaining widespread use — supplies an electronic, time-based key via a mobile app on a technician’s smartphone.

The technician actuates the electronic lock via a secure Bluetooth connection. An audit trail is established through cloudbased access controllers so that the network operator knows exactly who accessed the cell site, for how long and what work was completed.

This kind of secure, traceable access is vital for protecting and sustaining the growth of 5G systems.

Electronic access control is costeffective in the long run because it keeps this expensive equipment safe from harm and theft. It also represents one example of how engineered access technology can leverage the expansion of connectivity that isinherent to the vision for smart city design.

Smart lighting transforms the streetlight Connectivity and digital technology, combined with LEDs, are rapidly changing the common streetlight. Municipalities worldwide are replacing traditional lighting fixtures with energy-saving LED fixtures. In the process, forwardlooking cities are upgrading those lighting fixtures to provide a broader range of functionality than just shedding light.

Smart LED fixtures could one day be able to find a parking space, monitor air quality, guide people on emergency evacuation routes and capture a wealth of traffic data to manage vehicle flow, reduce traffic jams and help improve the environment.

Lighting manufacturers are seeking to provide more advanced lighting poles and fixtures for these streetlights, incorporating digital controllers so they can be dimmed or brightened to save energy.

The systems can also incorporate sensors and even video cameras to begin capturing a wealth of data to augment efforts by municipalities to analyze and better manage traffic and public safety.

These upgraded fixtures will need upgraded access hardware to protect the more valuable equipment that powers them. However, compared to 5G telecom equipment enclosures, there will most likely be no need for regular access to upgrade or maintain smart light fixtures.

In the past, access hardware for lighting fixtures could be simple and relatively low-cost quarter-turn fasteners combined with hidden hinges, mainly for ease of access to replace worn-out bulbs. The advent of LED lighting means that fixtures may go years without needing to be opened for this purpose. However, since the equipment in smart light fixtures is more advanced than a standard lighting fixture, latches with higher security features may be necessary to protect the investment.

For example, there are new rotary latch models offered by major access hardware manufacturers that combine smaller dimensions with highly secure latching. These latches can fit easily into smart lamp fixtures, as well as access panels in the base of streetlamps. They are designed to be hidden, so not to attract attention, yet are highly secure and provide the appropriate level of compression to keep out rain, ice and snow. In addition, they can be cost-effectively upgraded to include electronic locking features, if the enduser municipality ultimately wants to enhance the security of the fixture.

EVs and Parcel Lockers: new fixtures for the smart city Two of the most leading-edge new fixtures that are becoming common elements in the emerging cityscape are EV charging stations and Automated Parcel Delivery Terminals for ecommerce delivery and returns.

EV charging stations will eventually become as ubiquitous as the gasoline station, with much of the same requirement: the ability for the EV driver to access the charger, connect it to their vehicle and “pay at the pump”. As well as appearing next to the traditional gas pump at gas stations, EV charging stations will find their way into parking lots, convenience stores and streetscapes.

That creates a security risk: EV charging stations contain expensive electrical equipment and have direct links to communications networks, making them targets for thieves and hackers. Since they are in unsupervised locations, EV charging station designers must carefully consider incorporating the same level of secure access hardware, including top-level electronic access solutions with audit trail capabilities, to provide the same level of protection that 5G enclosures require.

Unlike 5G enclosures, however, there is a clear trend toward designing EV charging stations to incorporate branding elements and distinctive visual designs so that EV vehicle

operators can easily spot them.

Electronic access solutions providers can help support this industrial design challenge with concealed locking mechanisms and hardware that help achieve marketing design goals.

The growth of intelligent parcel lockers is the result of many people — in city centers especially, but also other locations — who prefer to have their ecommerce packages left in a secure location rather than an apartment building lobby or the front steps of a town house. They also provide a convenient way to return products through the same logistics path. This equipment requires a high level of security and audit trail tracking; however, in some cases the designs of these lockers call for very tight dimensions. Leading access hardware suppliers have been working with locker designers to create cost-effective latching systems that can incorporate electronic latching in limited spaces.

Help selecting the right access hardware The smart city is not going to be built out in an empty field — in almost all cases the technology to make a city “smarter” will need to be retrofitted into our existing cityscapes. This is one of the most critical challenges design engineers face when creating enclosure designs and selecting access hardware to secure them.

A key source of support and creative solutions for these challenges is a proven access hardware supplier with extensive experience addressing both functional and aesthetic challenges.

They can often draw on existing portfolios and design concepts to help solve these critical engineering and design challenges.

Choosing a proven supplier can be the “smart” move to ensuring that the technology infrastructure enabling the benefits of the smart city is well protected, easily accessed and intelligently woven into existing urban environments. www.southco.com 39

Off to a flying start Can enclosures be machined and fitted out even faster? How the AX compact enclosure from Rittal speeds things up.

Meurer-etechnik is looking to the new AX compact enclosure from Rittal to improve its production efficiency. How does the new model differ from its prede- cessor, the AE? A day spent with enclosure production staff reveals all.

A new working day dawns at Mureretechnik in Germany’s Westerwald region. In the incoming goods section, a young man wearing a black T-shirt with the company logo on the front and the sleeve is taking delivery of a pallet with eight AX compact enclosures from Rittal.

Production Manager Steven Lauer is al- ready waiting for their arrival. In just a week’s time, the UL-compliant enclosures are set to be delivered to a special-purpose machinery manufacturer based in the Cologne area. Lauer, can’t wait to see how the new AX enclosures differ from the pre-decessor model, the AE.

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Let’s get started,” he says. Lauer has assigned the task of fitting out the AX enclosures to three of the plant electricians. One of them is already clamping the first enclosure door into the Perforex CNC machining centre. The mounting plates are next. Progress is rapid, because the doors and mounting plates are simply added to the delivery package and staff don’t have the hassle of first detaching them from the enclosure, as is normally the case. Using the digital twin’s manufacturing data from Eplan Pro Panel, the machine cuts all the necessary holes in doublequick time. “That part is the most fun,” says Lauer, who is standing casually at the machine’s operator terminal.

“There are hardly any questions to deal with and you can see the results straight away,” he adds. t’s now time for pre-assembly, configuration and wiring. A fully automatic wire processing machine has already produced the necessary cable harnesses

– also using data from the design engineering department.

In this way, Meurer-etechnik is gradually implementing “enclosure manufacturing 4.0”.

Lauer indicates an area in the rear part of the light-filled factory building to three members of staff, who lift the compact enclosures onto small metal trestles. Next to each of the plant electricians is a trolley with tools and a number of boxes containing electronic components.

The enclosures are now lying on their backs with the doors fitted.

Beside them are the mounting plates, to which the men next attach the mounting rails and cable ducts. Contactors, terminals, inverters and similar components are then installed.

During this configuration process, the electricians regularly consult their tablets to compare their work with the 3D model. Next comes the wiring. Last but not least, the fully

wired mounting plate is fitted into the enclosures. Lauer has been with Meurer-etechnik for ten years. Back when he was an apprentice, he still had to learn how to position each hole manually.

“The technology has come a long way since then,” he says before asking his colleagues the following question: “So, what’s different about the AX?” The answer: “It feels like there’s more room on the gland plate.” And there is indeed 30 per cent more space for inserting cables. “That’s a huge advantage,” insists Lauer, because digitalisation is continuously increasing the number of components in the enclosure and thus also the number of cables that need to be routed inside via the gland plate.

He also takes a closer look at the interior wall of the compact enclosure. “There always used to be problems with the interior fitout, because there weren’t enough options for fitting the depth stays.

That has now changed,” he notes.

Being able to install the rails at a variety of heights makes the process of designing the levels more flexible. Lauer points to a grey box on one of the trolleys.

There are now only three cable harnesses left in it. “Once the box with the cables starts looking empty, I know we’re on the finishing straight,” he says.

There were no errors during testing, and the enclosures for the specialpurpose machinery manufacturer were even ready half a day ahead of schedule.

“You’re happy if, when you get to the end of the day, there’s no danger of failing to meet the delivery deadline and the quality is as it should be,” says a delighted Lauer.

Further information can be found at www.rittal.com and www.friedhelm-loh-group.com 41

Meije renews the overhead crane of a hydroelectric plant Meije, manufacturer of overhead cranes, gantry cranes, installer of handling equipment and member of Verlinde’s EUROPONT and aftersales network, has won a tender for the renewal of a travelling crane in the hydroelectric plant at Mauzac, Dordogne. Present production of electricity at the plant enables some 15,000 households to be provided with this source of energy. The replaced overhead crane was commissioned in 1924 when the facility was built. Having become obsolescent, its use was suspended in 2019.

With more than 70 years of experience and 25 professionals in the workshop and in the field, Meije’s field of action is a wide stretch of the South of France for lifting and handling operations for industry, together with the maintenance of electric motors. An important unit is dedicated to the construction of overhead cranes associated with an advisory service in the design department. Meije operates with the most demanding industrial companies not least of which are those in aerospace and ship building.

Meije conducts on-site works including diagnosis, predictive maintenance, asynchronous motor and generator maintenance, laser alignment, dynamic balancing and vibration analysis of equipment.

MASE certification provides a

guarantee of safety, one of the company’s main operational priorities. Meije has been Verlinde’s partner and a member of the EUROPONT network for twenty years.

crane because of the narrowness of the installation and of the potential difficulties for positioning.

An industrial site one hundred years old

Taking into account structural and design flaws, Meije responded by offering a complete replacement rather than a refurbishment, for an equivalent budget. With similar experience on another EDF site, Meije was able to resolve installation difficulties.

The company’s solution was adopted.

Meije has been involved in the installation, repair and maintenance of lifting equipment for the Mauzac hydroelectric plant for 40 years.

The factory was inaugurated in 1924, and several pieces of equipment still in use date from that period. That was the case of the overhead crane, used for the maintenance of machines. In compliance with the design of the early 20th century, the overhead crane operated with a single lifting speed and without a load limiter.

Too old and obsolete, the overhead crane no longer met current safety standards. It also had design issues as it brushed against the plant wall when moving. Its use was therefore suspended in 2019. As a temporary replacement, a mobile crane or jib crane was occasionally used. The lifting process was expensive and not all-inclusive due to a lack of the power required to lift certain parts of alternators.

The hydroelectric plant therefore issued an invitation for bids initially for the retrofit of the overhead

A customized overhead crane

A custom-designed overhead crane with an MWL of 63 tonnes, a span of 14.5m and a height of 12m was built.

The crane is fitted with VERLINDE EUROBLOC VT5 hoists, with two speeds for all directions, a load limiter and radio control. Several options were added at the customer’s request: lighting of the work area by LED projectors and load readout.

An additional 3.2 tonne auxiliary hook on a VERLINDE EUROBLOC VT2 maintenance hoist replaces the large hook for small manoeuvres.

Meije took charge of the installation.

It was necessary to install the crane outside the building and make an opening in the roof. The modern and down-sized design of the new overhead crane fits perfectly into the buildings, without touching the walls.

The new overhead crane was installed in Mauzac in the Spring of 2021. It took Meije only 6 months to design, manufacture and commission.

The plant is once again fully serviceable with a practical, functional and standardscompliant overhead crane. It is again possible to organize full maintenance of the turbines. www.verlinde.com

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Bar code identification with the best recommendations from AI Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be very worthwhile when it comes to identifying the bar codes on goods. Interfering factors can be identified quickly and easily both during commissioning of a system and during operation No need for time-consuming searches Bar code readers are sensors used to identify goods and materials in production or logistics. They do so by detecting bar codes that meet one of a number of standards and then supplying the IDs of the bar codes to a superior system. When using these devices in automated applications, the main objective is to achieve the highest possible reading quality: Essentially, when bar code readers detect the labels,

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the quality with which they perform this task varies, and this quality can be indicated as a percentage. The percentage relates to the contrast detected. If the value is below a certain threshold, the label is no longer read. One challenge faced by system operators is to find bar code readers as quickly as possible when they are no longer providing sufficient reading quality, and to determine the reasons for this – without additional data regarding the possible sources of error, this can be a time-consuming task.

Particularly in large systems, for example in intralogistics, that have up to 1,000 bar code readers and kilometer-long transport routes, the search is like looking for a needle in haystack: If in doubt, a technician must trace the entire route of a transport material in

order to identify a poorly aligned sensor or the interfering factors in its direct environment, all while under time pressure. The situation is made worse by borderline cases, such as when the bar code reader is somewhat aligned and reads successfully most of the time, but occasionally does not detect labels. This may be because the bar code reader is slightly inclined or only reads in the border area, or other factors may play a role, for example labels of insufficient quality.

Factors that influence reading quality However, generating corresponding data to find the causes of errors using the bar code reader itself is only possible under certain

circumstances. It is true that the sensors monitor their own status and transfer data to the superior system via OPC UA if required.

However, this self-monitoring has only very limited functionality – a sensor only considers its own view. This means that it sends information such as “I’m currently reading,” “Excellent reading,” or “Very poor reading” – i.e. its calculated percentage reading quality. The reason for the poor reading quality cannot be identified by the individual device. There are three possible influential factors in this case: The device itself, the bar code label and interfering factors in the environment. Possible sources of error relating to the bar code reader itself include poor alignment to the labels to be detected or a

technical fault. In turn, labels can be damaged, soiled or poorly printed, which, depending on the degree of damage or printing quality, may only reduce the reading quality or may prevent identification entirely. Interfering factors in the environment include vibrations, dust, and glare caused by sunlight or emitters in the background. Humidity, for example in cold stores, can be an interfering factor if this causes fogging on the scanning window of the bar code reader.

Artificial intelligence provides the context AI can help to distinguish the various causes from one another and in doing so identify the reasons for interferences or poor reading

quality. Leuze is working with an automobile manufacturer to develop a solution that enhances sensors with data from the overall context. The advantage of this is that the bar code readers remain operational as usual without additional work being generated for the customer during installation. The data volumes are large: Many labels pass by many bar code readers during the process and are read at various installation locations. This is where the overall context comes from. In mathematical terms, this overall context can be described as an equation with many unknowns – countless bar code readers, labels that crop up even more frequently and the various installation locations of the readers. At every station and for every label there is a different result in terms of reading quality percentage. AI solves this complicated equation system and answers the questions about whether a poor reading quality occurs always with a particular bar code reader, only with one label or a particular label type or always at a particular installation location.

Machine learning via recommendation algorithms To achieve this, Leuze uses recommendation algorithms, i.e. AIbased recommendation methods.

These are the same methods that are used by streaming services, for example, to evaluate user behavior and recommend corresponding films or series based on this analysis.

In this user behavior analogy, the bar codes correspond to the films and the bar code readers to the users of the streaming services. The recommendation algorithm rates a label as more or less “attractive” for different bar code readers. In this way, it is possible to determine which sensor or which label with a certain percentage is “unattractrive”, i.e. borderline or noticeably problematic.

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Per edge device or cloud In technical terms, an AI-based solution of this kind can be implemented via edge devices or a cloud, depending on the customer requirements and the respective system. An edge device is a separate device that is located in the vicinity of a sensor group and gathers, analyses and passes on the data of the sensor group.

Multiple edge devices can be connected to one another.

Since an edge device is capable of two-way communication, not just gathering and evaluating data but also sending the analysis back to the sensors, a bar code reader can also pass on this information and report that there is a problem.

The advantage of this is there is no need to make any changes to the IT architecture of the customer.

Alternatively, the solution can be operated via a cloud if data from separate locations is to be merged.

Significant potential for savings Leuze’s approach of using AI-based recommendations to identify errors offers huge advantages both during commissioning and during operation of a system. Fast commissioning saves time and money. In this case, it is useful if the causes of poor reading quality are identified immediately. During operation, this method enables predictive maintenance.

This means that if a shutdown will soon be required, system operators can take suitable measures in good time and, for example, manufacture and outsource in advance so that they can continue to supply their customers. In some cases, data from multiple years can be used to facilitate this early detection.

In addition, the system learns continuously. Therefore, using AI is always worthwhile when it comes to quickly and reliably identifying factors that interfere with the identification of bar codes on goods.

For more information please visit: www.leuze.co.uk 46

Visualizing Sound with the FLIR Si124 an Ultrasonic Leak Detection Camera Did you know it’s possible to visualize sound? You don’t have to be an acoustic engineer to make sense of it either: the FLIR Si124 industrial acoustic imaging camera produces a precise acoustic image that is overlaid in real time on top of a digital camera picture.

The blended visual and sound image is presented live on screen, visually displaying ultrasonic information and allowing the user to accurately pinpoint the source of the sound.

Acoustic imaging is used for two primary purposes: air leak detection, and locating partial discharge from high-voltage systems. Using sound imaging from 124 built-in microphones, the FLIR Si124 can help professionals identify leaks and partial discharge up to 10 times faster than with traditional methods.

Compressed air leak detection Compressed air is the single most expensive energy source across

all factory types, yet up to one-third of that compressed air gets lost to leaks and inefficiencies. The human ear can sometimes hear an air leak in a quiet environment, but in a typical industrial environment it’s impossible to hear even bigger leaks due to loud background noise. Fortunately, the Si124 filters out the industrial noise, allowing professionals to “visualize” sound even in noisy environments.

Partial discharge in high-voltage systems In electrical systems, partial discharge can lead to equipment failures and unplanned downtime.

With the Si124, professionals can safely detect problems from up to 100 meters away and analyze discharge patterns. The camera classifies three partial discharge types, including surface discharge, floating discharge, and discharge into air. Knowing the type and severity of the discharge enables the facility to schedule

maintenance to minimize failures and downtime.

What sets the Si124 further apart from other acoustic imaging cameras is the FLIR Acoustic Camera Viewer cloud service. Image captures are quickly uploaded over Wi-Fi to the cloud service and then immediately analyzed, providing the user in-depth information such as the size and energy cost of a compressed air leak, or the partial discharge classification and pattern of an electric fault.

In addition, users get 8 GBs of storage and wireless data transfer capabilities, making sharing photos and data simple and efficient.

The Si124 requires minimal training and can be used one-handed.

Through a regular maintenance routine, professionals can identify issues fast – helping utilities keep the power flowing and manufacturing operations going. To learn more, visit www.FLIR.com/Si124.

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