All Features
Silke von Gemmingen
Preventive conservation plays an important role in preserving art and cultural assets. To preserve their condition for as long as possible, it’s essential to slow down and evaluate aging processes and other factors that alter materials. To do this, it’s necessary to gain a holistic understanding of…
National Physical Laboratory
Through their exceptional material properties, graphene and related 2D materials have the potential to disrupt technologies such as energy-storage devices, composites, and electronics. Depending on the material, these properties can include high electrical conductivity, high mechanical strength,…
Steve Oliver
Alignment with Laser (AW Laser), a South African company, specializes in alignment. Using API laser trackers to align machinery and equipment in a range of industries, AW Laser provides measurement services, especially for shipyards, aluminum plants, steel mills, paper manufacturers, and sugar…
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have developed a machine learning-inspired software package that provides end-to-end image analysis of electron and scanning probe microscopy images.
Known as AtomAI, the package applies deep learning to…
Adam Zewe
Inspired by the human finger, MIT researchers have developed a robotic hand that uses high-resolution touch sensing to accurately identify an object after grasping it just one time.
Many robotic hands pack all their powerful sensors into the fingertips, so an object must be in full contact with…
Manufacturing Automation Systems LLC
In today’s global manufacturing markets, the need for accurate measurement has moved well beyond micrometers, gauges, and calipers. That’s why manufacturers are replacing manual metrology tools with fully automated systems. But what is automated metrology?
Automated metrology, sometimes called 3D…
Bryan Christiansen
People often use the terms maintenance and reliability interchangeably. However, they are two separate concepts. Although there is some overlap, their scope and focus are quite different.
Understanding those differences, as well as how each concept affects the other, is a necessary step for…
Fred Miller
Researchers in Arkansas and two other states will be using a $5 million grant to increase use of artificial intelligence and robotics in chicken processing to reduce waste in deboning and detect pathogens.
The grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Institute of Food and…
Daniel Croft
As the aviation industry continues to evolve, the need for advanced technology to perform aircraft inspections is important. One such technology is noncontact scanning, which is becoming increasingly popular for full aircraft inspections.
Given the extreme forces to which aircraft are subjected…
National Physical Laboratory
Graphene and related 2D materials (GR2Ms) could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the production of advanced materials. Using GR2M nanoplatelets in applications such as reinforcing concrete or improving battery performance will require a dramatic increase in production. As the production of…
Keith Irwin
Many times per week we’re asked, “Is X-ray or CT the correct inspection method for my project?” The answer, of course, isn’t always straightforward. This article will highlight some strengths and weaknesses of each method.
The subject for inspection is a carbon fiber board with inclusions…
Peter Büscher
This article will focus on a sampling method that is commonly used to analyze fluid: direct liquid filtration. Simply put, direct liquid filtration is a sampling technique used to determine the particles present in a liquid.
In direct liquid filtration, the liquid with suspended particles is…
Bo Ingves
Rising costs from inflation and increased focus on reducing carbon dioxide emissions make product loss management more important than ever in dairy plants. One major reason these losses occur is because timings or other process parameters are set incorrectly, causing a lot of valuable dairy product…
NIST
Detailed virtual copies of physical objects, called digital twins, are opening doors for better products across automotive, healthcare, aerospace, and other industries. According to a new study, cybersecurity may also fit neatly into the digital twin portfolio.
As more robots and other…
Henry Zumbrun
Small-force measurement is crucial for many applications, such as testing materials, monitoring biomedical devices, and studying the behavior of cells and molecules. In this article, we’ll explore the challenges of measuring small forces and the solutions that are available to address them.
There…
Katie Rapp
A major focus of the current administration is revitalizing American manufacturing as new technologies are changing the way things are made. Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) director Pravina Raghavan recently appeared on Government Matters TV, where she discussed how MEP National Network…
Trupti Dhere
The healthcare industry is known for rapidly adopting advanced technologies that offer improved treatment for various diseases. Consequently, digital twin technology in healthcare has gained popularity during the past few years, owing to the range of advantages it offers.
Digital twin technology…
Etienne Nichols
In a highly regulated industry like medical technology, manufacturing processes must undergo either process verification or process validation to ensure they’re consistently producing the correct result. The question is, which one should you use?
Verification and validation are two different…
Anil More
It’s been decades since air gauging came into existence, and many changes and refinements have been made over the years. It has proved itself as a reliable and accurate method of gauging parts, particularly in cases of close tolerances and fine finishes. Its high accuracy, simplicity, and…
Jennifer Lauren Lee
In a brightly lit subterranean lab at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) sits a room-sized electromechanical machine called the NIST-4 Kibble balance.
The instrument can already measure the mass of objects of roughly 1 kilogram, about as heavy as a quart of milk, as…
Adam Zewe
When deep-learning models are deployed in the real world—perhaps to detect financial fraud from credit card activity or identify cancer in medical images—they are often able to outperform humans.
But what exactly are these deep-learning models learning? Does a model trained to spot skin cancer in…
Mark Hembree
When I started working from home in 1998, it wasn’t by choice. I was writing for a major record label that decided—in so many words—that I was like a painting that didn’t go with the furniture. (Fine. Know what you get when you play New Age music backward? New Age music.)
My panic-stricken…
Belinda Jones
The worldwide pandemic presented unique challenges for every manufacturer in the United States. Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence division was no exception. While its factory operations team has always pursued continuous improvement, the disruptions and slowdown related to the pandemic offered a…
NIST
As 2022 draws to a close, we ask NIST’s senior researchers to look ahead to the new year and beyond. They research topics that affect all of us, from indoor air quality to cybersecurity. So we ask our fellows, “How will the technology you are working on today affect society in the years to come?”…
Nisan Lerea
Quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) are a continual part of any manufacturing process. No matter how many times your factory has executed the same procedure, you must regularly perform quality checks to maintain the same quality level of your process. Quality control on a manufacturing…
