Software Update
curve—steeper if possible. Sensor devices and single-board computers are readily accessible to any hobbyist for $75 or less; and, courtesy of the Internet and ROS libraries, hobbyists can build a functional, albeit primitive, robot in their basement. ME: Do companies typically use consumer hobby electron- ics in their manufacturing process? Hunt: No. But when you consider the fact that today’s hob- byists are tomorrow’s industrial engineers, it’s not hard to see where the push is coming from, or will come from. But I don’t want to give you the idea that only inexpensive hobbyist-type sensors are available. Not by a long shot. Robust factory-hard- ened sensors are coming on the market all the time. ME: How does the increasing availability of factory-hard- ened sensor equipment affect robot software requirements? Hunt: For an industrial robot OEM, it translates into flexibil- ity and scalability. The shark circling in the water is the con- tinually advancing technology, and that’s not by any means a bad thing. It just means that if we don’t embrace it through
embedding, SIGs [special interest groups], and other means, that shark will end up devouring our resources developing bolt-on fixes. Instead of ‘we need a bigger boat,’ it’s ‘we need a smaller form factor… and more CPU cores!’” ME
Acquisitions
PLM developer Dassault Systèmes (Velizy-Villacoublay, France) announced Sept. 4 that is has acquired Safe Technol- ogy Ltd. (Sheffield, UK), a developer of fatigue simulation solu- tions. Dassault said the acquisition will expand its 3DExperi- ence platform and its Simulia realistic simulation applications, providing a complete and accurate durability solution. No financial details of the transaction were disclosed. SofTech Inc. (Lowell, MA) announced Sept. 3 that it would sell its Cadra CAD software product line to Mentor Graphics Corp. (Wilsonville, OR) for $3.2 million, plus potential earn-out payments of up to an additional $750,000 based on 10% of
See us at WESTEC Booth #3305 & SOUTH-TEC Booth #1523 32
ManufacturingEngineeringMedia.com | October 2013
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116