Istep June 2008

newsletter A publication from ifm efector featuring innovation steps in technology from around the world EDITORIAL TECHNOLOGY NEWS Dear Readers, The electric-vehicle The Future of market may have a promising future on the horizon with the Lithium-ion Batteries development of a new lithium-ion battery. A start-up company has designed a safe, light-weight lithium-ion battery that stores twice as much energy as the traditional nickel-metal hydride battery previously used in electric vehicles. The new, high-performance battery could make lithium-ion technology practical and jump-start the electric-auto industry. Applying practical innovation to simplify technology is a priority for the Credit: Porter Gifford ifm R&D team. ifm invented the world’s first two-wire proximity sensor and continues to leverage our core A battery designed by A123 Systems for General Motor’s Volt electric vehicle stores enough energy competency – electronic circuits – to for 40 miles of driving, enough to cover daily commutes. introduce products that increase productivity in manufacturing – such It is the quickest electric motorcycle in the "Killacycle" is a novel lithium-ion as sensors with low current the world. The driver settles into battery developed by A123 Systems, a consumption to interface with PLCs position and hits a switch, and the startup in Watertown, MA – one of a and our new Multi-Code Reader that bike surges forward, accelerating to handful of companies working on identifies both 2D and 1D codes. 60 miles per hour in less than a similar technology. second. Seven seconds later it crosses The company's batteries store more the quarter-mile mark at 168 miles per than twice as much energy as nickel- Lizanne Dathe hour – quick enough to compete with metal hydride batteries, the type used Editor, i-Step Newsletter gas-powered dragsters. What powers in today's hybrid cars, while delivering the bursts of power necessary for high IFM PRODUCT performance. A radically modified version of the lithium-ion batteries Multi-Code Reader for Reliable Identification used in portable electronics, the of Data Matrix and 1D Codes technology could jump-start the long- sputtering electric-vehicle market, ifm’s versatile Multi-Code reader can The ifm advantage which today represents a tiny fraction identify, verify and qualify most • Robust housing of 1 percent of vehicle sales in the marking methods including dot- United States. A123's batteries in • Reads both 2D and 1D codes peened, laser-etched and particular have attracted the interest printed DMC codes as well as • CMOS image sensor of General Motors, which is testing printed barcodes. With a • Reads all marking methods them as a way to power the Volt, an list price of $850.00 (U.S.), electric car with a gasoline generator; • 7 meters/second line speed the Multi-Code Reader is the vehicle is expected to go into mass a new benchmark for price / per- • Easy Setup Wizard production as early as 2010. formance in reliable iden- • Switching output for I/O In the past, automakers have blamed tification of Data Matrix and 1D • Ethernet TCP/IP electric vehicles' poor sales on their Codes. lead-acid or nickel-metal hydride • $850 Price – 50% lower batteries, which were so heavy that than current technologies Continued: see “Multi-Code Reader” on page 3 they limited the vehicles' range and so bulky that they took up trunk space. June 2008 • Issue 13 Continued: see “Battery” on page 2 ifm efector – close to you! TECHNOLOGY BATTERY (continued) 2 If These Walls While conventional lithium-ion batteries are much lighter and more Could Talk compact, they're not cost effective for electric vehicles. That's partly because they use lithium cobalt oxide electrodes, which can be unstable: batteries based on them wear out after a couple of years and can burst into flame if punctured, crushed, overcharged, or overheated. Andrew Medley, one of the first ground breakers in flat speaker technology, sees the technology being used for minute hearing aids and replacing bulky speakers in cars. A123's batteries could finally make lithium-ion technology practical for Your walls soon could get a voice of crystalline or ceramic, piezoelectric the auto industry. Instead of cobalt their own. A new technology has the materials. oxide, they use an electrode material potential to turn just about any By adding silicone rubber to that made from nanoparticles of lithium surface, including your walls, into a material, Yu and colleagues have iron phosphate modified with trace speaker. Microphones and speakers made it possible to separately control metals. The resulting batteries are use piezoelectric materials that move the material's piezoelectric mechanical unlikely to catch fire, even if crushed in response to voltage, or create properties. in an accident. They are also much voltage from movement. But common piezoelectric materials are expensive, Until now changing the flexibility, say, heavy and brittle. of a piezoelectric material would always impact its electrical properties. Now materials scientist Michael Yu at That made it near-impossible to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore design materials with certain and colleagues say they have made a combinations of physical and Credit: Porter Gifford rubbery plastic-based material that piezoelectric properties. could help place piezoelectric devices in previously impractical areas. Combined with the ease with which polymers can be processed, the new A123’s lithium-ion battery can survive a high- The team's invention is based on a material should open up novel velocity impact that could have caused other polypropylene foam with piezoelectric applications: wallpaper that functions lithium-ion batteries to overheat and catch fire. properties that was discovered as speakers, lightweight devices to in 2004. The plastic is flexible and scavenge movement energy, and hardier than conventional lithium-ion has entirely different mechanical foldable speakers, are just some of batteries. A123 predicts that they will properties to most other, often their ideas. last longer than the typical lifetime of a car. KNOW-HOW The A123 batteries for GM's Volt store enough energy for 40 miles of driving, Orthopedic Knee Brace enough to cover daily commutes. (On longer trips, the small gasoline engine Harvests Energy would kick in to recharge the battery, extending the range to more than 400 With the proliferation of small gadgets that need to be miles.) If the Volt is popular, electric charged, engineers are looking for alternatives to electrical cars could finally start to take off – outlets for charging. Researchers have already made shoe- and that could reduce greenhouse- embedded generators that are easy to use, but collect only a gas emissions and petroleum watt of power. consumption. Whatever their design, Scientists at Simon Fraser University in British future cars will be likely to rely much Columbia have designed a knee brace that can harvest more on electricity. as much as 13 watts of power from the energy of its A recent study by the Electric Power wearer’s strides, enough to charge 30 phones simultaneously. Research Institute and the Natural The scientists looked at the biomechanics of the human gait and saw that at the Resources Defense Council suggests end of a stride, a person must actually exert energy to slow his moving leg. When that electric vehicles similar to GM's the brace’s generator is engaged, it helps slow the leg for the wearer, capturing car could eliminate billions of tons of energy in much the same way that a hybrid car harvests energy from braking. greenhouse-gas emissions between Rather than forcing the wearer to work harder to produce extra energy, the brace 2010 and 2050. A study by General reduces the effort exerted at the end of a stride. A sensor in the device monitors Electric indicates that if half the the angle of the knee to turn the generator on and off so that it doesn’t impede vehicles on the road in 2030 are motion in the early part of stride, when the knee is accelerating. The prototype electric-powered, petroleum con- weighs just over three pounds; a spinoff company, Bionic Power, is developing a sumption in the United States will lightweight model. shrink by six million barrels a day. ifm efector • 800-441-8246 IFM PRODUCT (continued) ifm’s Multi-Code Reader 3 New Benchmark for Price / Performance Data matrix codes are Application challenges critical for tracking in reading DMC codes parts and insuring reliable quality in the manufacturing Challenge: Laser etched code on glass is process. However, difficult to read due to low contrast. some limitations exist for applying DMC Solution: technology which ifm's Multi-Code Reader features include the complexity integrated of the vision system, its lighting, a CMOS ability to withstand image sensor and industrial digital signal pro- environments, and the cessor to identify and read low- cost of the camera. contrast codes. ifm has designed a high-performance, easy-to-use Multi-Code Reader in a compact metal housing for rugged industrial automation applications – priced 50% lower than current technologies. Challenge: Dot-peened on highly reflective The Multi-Code Reader features a maximum target speed of 7 meters/second. The metal parts can be difficult to read due to unit reads three types of 2D and data matrix codes: ECC200, PDF-417 and QR as reflections. well as 19 different styles of printed barcodes. Solution: ifm’s camera incorporates a CMOS image sensor with a digital signal processor The camera's and an integrated lighting system. The camera features four individual lighting internal filters can segments that can be turned on or off to achieve the proper brightness and adjust lighting to increase contrast. contrast for readability. The camera’s Smart Algorithm enables the unit to read Four-quadrant codes placed in any orientation.

Load more