I would like to say farewell in this issue of Motion Control to my colleague and predecessor Andrew Ashton who tragically passed away on the 18th of June. When I took over from him as editor of Motion Control I had very big shoes to fill. Although he was no longer involved with Motion Control he continued to play an active role in our sister Technews publication, SA Instrumentation & Control until very recently and we will miss him sorely. What I will remember is his huge intellect and his wonderful quirky sense of humour. He was a highly talented photographer and his images for me were something to aspire to as were his stories of his excursions into the bush together with his wife Christine. Many will also remember over the years the SAFPA dinners where he and Christine took to the floor and had a ball. A tribute to Andrew by our Technews managing editor Graeme Bell is in 'Farewell Andrew Ashton'.
The learners are getting jobs
There are big changes in skills development legislation coming in next year that will have a substantial impact on the ability of companies to claim rebates for their training against the skills levy. This applies especially to the fluid power industry, where all its training qualifications are now under threat. SAFPA has risen to the challenge and has made substantial progress in setting up a strategic training initiative. SAFPA needs the fluid power industry to commit to this programme, which is key to its long-term sustainability. The full story is in 'New legislation to affect skills development rebates'.
Supramotion
Sadly our Jim Pinto columns are coming to an end as Jim is moving on to more esoteric prognostications while he pursues his bucket list. However, we hope to continue with his futuristic outlook with regular features on new technologies. Festo is one of my favourites. We have regularly covered the amazing creations arising from Festo’s Bionic Learning Network and the company’s contribution to Industry 4.0, or the Industrial Internet of Things. To me one of Festo’s most outstanding technologies is Supramotion which is based on superconductors that make hovering, contactless motion possible and is creating the possibility for new and previously unimaginable applications in motion technology.
The robots are coming
Another of my favourites is robotics. New cool robots are coming out thick and fast, but red flags are being raised by some pretty influential players – like Bill Gates and Elon Musk. They have two concerns. Firstly robots are set to swallow up a lot of jobs. Secondly will there come a stage when we are no longer able to control them? Stephen Hawking has also joined the debate. He says, “With the arrival of artificial intelligence we are facing potentially the best or worst thing to happen to humanity in history.” Maybe that day is coming. A recent story in Robotics Trends describes an experiment where roboticists put three robots through a difficult self-awareness test and one of them passed. Maybe we should just bring back science fiction writer Isaac Asimov’s three laws of robotics: a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; “a robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law; and a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law”.
We have some great robot stories in this issue: a hydraulically actuated quadruped created to help humans in emergency situations with components and systems from Moog; and best of all Rosetta Mission’s Philae lander, which became the first spacecraft ever to land on the nucleus of a comet – Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It bounced and went dormant but has now come alive again as the comet’s orbit changed just enough for the sun to light up Philae’s solar panels. Philae is driven by Faulhaber drive systems locally supplied by Horne Technologies. Another aerospace story covers TaxiBots used for taxiing aircraft from the boarding gate to the takeoff runway each fitted with an electric drive system from Siemens.
In our automotive feature we have Renault’s new generation K9 engine where LEF actuators from SMC Pneumatics support the screw driven parts of the process. There is also coverage of a high precision networked steering shaft assembly that uses Beckhoff’s PC control technology; and finally in line with all this cutting edge technology our cover story is about the intensive research that has gone into Tectra Automation’s range of pneumatic valves from Aventics that sets new standards in compactness, lightness and advanced safety features.
Kim Roberts
Editor
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