Moving from 2D to 3D for about the price of 2D
Related: Digital Domain Related Suppliers Autodesk, Inc. Â Autodesk, Inc. (San Rafael, CA) has a bundle for computer- aided design (CAD) professionals: the Autodesk Inventor Series, which includes AutoCAD 2004 (2D CAD), AutoCAD Mechanical Desktop 2004 (basically AutoCAD with a major mechanical bent), and Autodesk Inventor 7 (3D, adaptive solids modeler). With this bundle, users can […]
Mechanical Devices and Advanced Intelligence from AF
The ZF ProAI, a system that makes use of the NVIDIA DRIVE PX2 artificial intelligence computing platform. The Intelligent Rolling Chassis—a platform for an electrified vehicle. Previous Next Related: Automotive Chassis Related Suppliers NVIDIA ZF Group Dr. Stefan Sommer, CEO of ZF Friedrichshafen AG (zf.com) emphasizes that the automotive supplier produces a variety of mechatronic […]
Metal to Plastic Under the Hood
Related: Automotive Chassis Automotive Materials Automotive Supply Side To hear the plastic engineers and executives tell it, it wasn’t long after the latest Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards were signed into law that Tier 1 suppliers and OEMS suddenly began returning phone calls and replying to long-dormant emails. In some cases, the classic cost […]
Microscopic Manufacturing at Motorola
Because of the need for atomic-level precision and the high risk of contamination, the 200-mm silicon wafers onto which semiconductors are built are handled almost exclusively by machines. To move from machine to machine, the wafers are loaded into plastic cases and shuttled along a mile-long enclosed monorail that snakes throughout the plant. About 300 […]
MIT: The Auto Industry’s Other Research Lab
Back in the 1940s, most of the collaborative work between the automotive companies and academic institutions was related to technical projects. Engine development, materials science, and lubrication technology were the rage back then. They still are major fields of research, but in the past decade, the collaborations have expanded to more cross-functional endeavors. “We’re looking […]
Managing Product Lines by Focusing on Features
It’s all about the V Model for describing systems engineering. Applied to PLE, the V Model doesn’t show the engineering lifecycle of an individual product. Instead, it’s the engineering lifecycle for a complete family—covering every variant of any product in that product family. Related: Digital Domain Product lifecycle management (PLM) has been the system of […]
Laser: The Disk Advantage
The optical arrangement inside a TRUMPF TruDisk laser. While it certainly looks technical, robust, and cool, more to the point, it can reliably perform tasks like welding. Related: Automotive Production Related Suppliers Trumpf Inc. Although TRUMPF Inc.’s (trumpf.com) laser division has a full array of industrial laser types—CO2, disk, fiber, diode, rod—and while David Havrilla, […]
Lasers for Improved Design & Engineering
What don’t you see in this picture of the Volkswagen Golf VII? Pieces of trim running along the roof of the vehicle where the body side is welded to the roof. Laser brazing is why. VW extensively uses lasers for joining in this vehicle. Note the various types of weld shapes on this door panel. […]
Looking at Some Robot Tech
Related Suppliers ABB Inc. Robtics FANUC Robotics America, Inc. Motoman Inc. If you were to see the actual version of this, the MotoEye LT laser seam-tracking device for tracking weld joints at high speed and in real time from the Motoman Robotics Div. of Yaskawa America (motoman.com), you wouldn’t see that red triangle emerging from […]
IR for ADAS.
Related: Automotive Electronics Although this may resemble some sort of high-tech snow globe, it is actually a new emitter developed by Osram Opto Semiconductors (osram-os.com) that, when used as part of a camera system from Advanced Visions Systems (advancedvisionsystems.com), results in the first infrared (IR) camera system that works in both the visible and IR […]
