Can Robots Really Learn?

If you keep up with robotics, you may have heard about robots that can learn tasks. This idea raises a lot of thought provoking questions. What does it mean for a robot to learn? Can robots really learn? Why would we want robots to learn? People become skilled at things through observation, learning, and practice…. Read more »

5 Cool Things That Are 3D-Printed

Indramat never made 3D printers, but that doesn’t mean that the two are unrelated. In fact, Indramat and 3D printers have more in common than you might think. 3D printers use servo motors to carry out functions, as do Indramat motion control systems (the two use very different types of servos, however). Indramat revolutionized the… Read more »

Indramat PPC Controls

Indramat PPC Control

What’s the most important part of a motion control system? While the motor and the drive are certainly essential to servo control, a strong argument could be made for the control itself. The control is responsible for sending information to the drive, as well as receiving and analyzing the feedback information. Basically, the control is… Read more »

Can a Robot be Creative?

Humans are special. We do amazing and incredible things that make us remarkable and unique. Expressing creativity through art is one of those things. A cheetah with a paintbrush won’t create a masterpiece comparable to something made by Renoir. It will just eat the paintbrush. Regardless of what the infinite monkey theorem tells us, a… Read more »

Platinum and Gold Autonomous Nanobots

We work with robots. More specifically, we deal in servo repair and maintenance for industrial machinery. Even more specifically, we specialize in Indramat motion control systems. But even though we work with robots, there are some robots that are well out of our wheelhouse. Like autonomous nanobots made out of platinum and gold, for example…. Read more »

Manufacturing and Politics

If you’ve been keeping up with the presidential primaries, you’ve probably heard plenty of talk about manufacturing. Whether politician A is sharing his experience of single-handedly running a steel mill as a boy, or politician B telling about how his father was born in an auto plant, politicians have been singing the tune of manufacturing… Read more »

Manufacturing Jobs and the State of Manufacturing

For the past couple hundred years, you would be safe measuring the current state of manufacturing by the amount of employment in the industry. While the employment rate is not an exact means of gauging the success of an industry, the more manufacturing jobs the better the manufacturing industry is doing. This was true when… Read more »

Fewer Robots?

If you were to ask a room full of roboticists, manufacturers, consumers, theoretical physicists, and all of their grandmothers whether manufacturing is becoming more automated or less automated, the answer would be unanimous. Automation is the future of manufacturing and pretty much everything else, and everybody knows it. You hear about the increasing use of… Read more »

A Look at Indramat Motors

If you’re looking for information about Indramat motors, there’s a good chance that you are in need of motor repair or that you need to replace your motor. It’s not because Indramat motors aren’t well made. In fact, it’s the opposite. All Indramat components are burly and well built. If you’re still running a system… Read more »

Robo-farming

What do you think of when you hear “robo-farming” or “robot farm”? It’s pretty obvious, right? You know how farmers wake up at the crack of dawn to the sound of a robotic rooster call, and then, wiping the sleep from their eyes, they don a pair of denim overalls and head to the fields… Read more »