by Jean Thilmany, Associate Editor

Floating on Air

The cardinal virtue of the gyroplane is its ability to do nearly everything a helicopter can do at less cost. The rotating wings of a helicopter are directly driven by the engine, enabling it to hover.

The rotating wings of the gyroplane are free-spinning, meaning it can’t hover, though it can come close to it, because it needs very little forward speed to stay airborne.

Meanwhile, many gyroplanes can be purchased and operated for less than some motorcycles. And because they fly in a constant state of autorotation, even a total engine failure results in a parachute-like descent, say the makers of the Sport Copter gyroplane.

The Sport Copter II gyroplane features side-by-side cockpit seating and an enclosed cabin and engine. Designers used CAD software, which helped cut materials cost.

Sport Copter of Scappoose, Ore., which designs and sells gyroplanes, recently unveiled its Sport Copter II, with a 49-inch cockpit for side-by-side seating and an enclosed cabin and engine, said Jim Vanek, the company’s president and chief designer.

Engineers used CAD software from SolidWorks of Concord, Mass., to design the plane. They always aim to create designs that use the least amount of material, and the CAD software helped them do that, Vanek said.

The software has also allowed his designers to park their shop vac.

Through the years, the designers have evolved from making scale models of control systems using wooden sticks to visualizing geometry in 3-D, Vanek said.

“SolidWorks proved to be much more efficient in the long run than filling the shop with dust and Bondo from prototypes made from 2-D drawings,” he said.

Looks Like Drilling, Feels Like It, Too

Surgical residents in Australia have the chance to practice medical drilling techniques in a simulator with software that gives them the sense of touch.

Medic Vision Ltd. of Melbourne has incorporated a haptic device that provides virtual touch to its Mediseus Surgical Drilling Simulator. That means students actually feel as though they’re doing surgical drilling when they use the simulator.

The system simulates drilling one of the temporal bones, which are situated at the sides and base of the skull, near the ears. The simulation uses the same viewing and operating technology that surgeons use during actual procedures: a stereoscopic 3-D microscope. The simulator now incorporates the sense of touch the surgeon also feels during the actual procedure.

Instead of holding a computer mouse, trainees hold a haptic device that provides force feedback—pushing back on the user’s hand—as they perform the surgical procedure. The device provides the feeling of the procedure in time with the on-screen graphics and with audio cues.

By giving the simulator a sense of touch, ear-nose-throat surgical residents can practice skills necessary for high-risk procedures without needing to practice on costly and sometimes prohibited cadaver samples, according to a Medic Vision statement.

The haptic feedback technology was supplied by SensAble Technologies Inc. of Woburn, Mass.

Sewage Sensors

In South Bend, Ind., a computer network is reaching into the sewer.

Engineers from Purdue University and the University of Notre Dame are working with a private company to create a wireless sensor network to prevent raw sewage in South Bend from overflowing into waterways, especially during storms, said Luis Montestruque. He is the chief executive officer at EmNet LLC of Granger, Ind., the private company involved in the plan.

The sewage will be selectively released later, so that it flows into the treatment plant when capacity is available, preventing the waste from being dumped into Indiana waterways.

Called CSOnet, the system will be composed of computer chips that communicate with each other over a wireless radio network. These microcomputers are embedded in the city sewer system and are connected to the manhole sensors and other flow and pressure sensors and a system of valves, Montestruque said.

The system will use a network of 105 manhole-mounted sensors and computer-controlled valves to automatically hold back the flow of rainwater and sewage in pipes and retention basins until the storm has passed.

Feedback from sensors will also be used to monitor hydraulic conditions in the sewer system, indicating when excess runoff and raw sewage are about to overflow. Then, valves will divert the flow into temporary storage sites.

Unlike other wireless systems, the network doesn’t require a command center and can be reprogrammed wirelessly from a remote location. The sensor information would be relayed to a server operated by EmNet.

Such embedded wireless sensor networks could have a place in hundreds of cities around the world faced with similar sewage-overflow problems, Montestruque said.

One challenge to system design is its environment, which isn’t quite the dripping, hushed subterranean rat’s paradise one would expect. The sensors mounted on the undersides of manhole covers will have to perform in an urban setting full of interference sources, said William Chappell, a Purdue assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering who helped design the sensor technology.

“The sensors must be made to operate in harsh conditions and adapt to changes in the wireless system like interference or the presence of parked or moving cars,” Chappell said. “And the system will need to broadcast sensing data generated underground to a network that operates above ground.”

Despite the challenges, CSOnet is expected to be up and running in summer 2009.

Minimal Retooling

Machine tool operators rarely get clean CAD files. To ensure that the tools can properly read CAD designs, the operators must make several manual tweaks to the files they get from mechanical engineers.

To ease this type of cleanup, HS Die & Engineering Inc. of Grand Rapids, Mich., recently upgraded its machine-tool programming software. The new version combines CAD manipulation, programming with toolpath editing, and verification, said Brad Rhowmine, an HS Die programmer.

The upgrade includes other intriguing features as well.

“The ability to check draft angles is very useful in helping us to select the correct cutter,” he said. “Additionally, we can patch surfaces wherever it’s necessary.”

HS Die uses the machine tool software WorkNC to program tools that machine molds and dies for automotive customers. The company makes molds for automotive and aerospace customers.

HS Die makes molds for automotive and aerospace customers. It specializes in injection, compression, structural foam, and stack molds for parts such as instrument panels, seat consoles, and fascias.

The manufacturer produces about 800 to 900 molds per year at its primary plant, and each mold can have between 50 and 1,000 toolpaths, depending on the complexity of the job.

The new program is WorkNC G3 from Sescoi of Southfield, Mich.

Deflecting an Asteroid

Chances are high that an asteroid is hurtling toward Earth even now. Chances also are also high that, when it enters the atmosphere, it will disappear harmlessly in a streak of light. But if and when the big one hits, Bong Wie wants us to be ready.

“In the early 1990s, scientists around the world initiated studies to assess and devise methods to prevent near-Earth objects from striking Earth,” Wie said. “But it’s now 2008, and there is no consensus on how to reliably deflect them in a timely manner.”

Wie came to Iowa State University in Ames to help officials there establish a specialized center devoted to developing asteroid deflection technologies. He’s now the Vance Coffman Endowed Chair Professor of Aerospace Engineering at Iowa State and director of the Asteroid Deflection Center.

Despite the lack of an immediate threat from a damaging asteroid strike, scientific evidence suggests that a serious collision is possible. It is important to design preventive measures, Wie said.

Researchers at the center will study high-energy nuclear explosions and low-energy non-nuclear alternatives as deflection techniques.

Wie will also oversee researchers as they develop precision orbital guidance and navigation and control systems, and the software that powers them. The systems will have applications beyond asteroid deflection. They may include future advanced space vehicles that could carry astronauts to an asteroid or to Mars, or serve in homeland security applications.

Iowa may just be the right place for that research. Approximately 74 million years ago, a one-mile-wide asteroid struck in central Iowa, creating the Manson Crater. Now covered with soil, at more than 23 miles across, it’s the largest crater in North America.

A little closer in time, 65 million years ago, a six-mile-wide asteroid struck near the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico and created the 106-mile-diameter Chicxulub Crater. Most scientists now believe that a global climate change caused by this asteroid impact may have led to the dinosaurs’ extinction.

And bringing the threat closer to home, just 100 years ago, in June 1908, an asteroid or comet that was estimated at 100 to 200 feet in diameter exploded in the skies above Tunguska, Siberia.

Known as the Tunguska Event, the explosion flattened trees and killed other vegetation over a 500,000-acre area. But if the explosion had occurred four hours later, it would have occurred over St. Petersburg or Moscow. It is believed that the event had an equivalent energy level of about 500 Hiroshima nuclear bombs, Wie said.

Still, the chances of having to use deflection technologies on an asteroid in the near future are admittedly remote. Scientists estimate that an extinction-class object—six miles in diameter or larger—could strike Earth once every 50 million to 100 million years, and the frequency of a 200-foot or larger object strike is once every 100 to 500 years.

Shared Quality

A standard of quality is laudable, but it can work only if all pertinent players keep that standard in mind as they move forward.

To ensure that designers and manufacturers are almost literally on the same page, General Motors has implemented a Web-based software system that uses a common design library across all divisions and all regions.

The system, to which all engineering and manufacturing sectors at GM refer, specifies quality standards for the design and manufacture of each individual part.

The standardization gives GM a shared quality specification that can be managed from product concept through product retirement, said Kirk Gutmann, global information officer for GM’s manufacturing and quality information systems and services.

The system, called Stature Quality Lifecycle Management, is from Dyadem of Toronto.

Safe Elderly Exercise

Two systems now under development could help elderly people exercise more safely and could watch them for falls.

Researchers at the University of Missouri Center for Eldercare and Rehabilitation Technology in Columbia, Mo., are working on a system that monitors older adults for signs of physical decline and preserves their privacy.

The information will help older adults understand more about their posture and movement during exercise, which can help them improve exercise effectiveness and safety, said Greg Alexander, assistant nursing professor at the university and lead researcher on the project. A second project will monitor for falls.

Using existing motion capture methods, the system uses standard Web cams to capture the silhouettes of exercisers and provides feedback via software about posture and gait, including stride, balance, and body position.

In another project, the researchers are at work on a video-based fall recognition system for elders.

The system preserves privacy by extracting silhouettes acquired from multiple cameras viewing the same scene. The silhouettes build a 3-D object and the object’s activity is analyzed by system software. In this way, the system generates summaries and distinguishes between falls and non-falls.

Briefly Noted

Altima Software of Cupertino, Calif., has released Everest 2009 Team Edition, data management software designed for enterprise CAD users.

CADLearning by 4D Technologies of Bedford, N.H., has released its AutoCAD 2009 video tutorial series, available online or via DVD.

AutoForm Engineering GmbH of Zurich, Switzerland, is shipping AutoForm Version 4.1.2 for the sheet metal forming industry. This version is specifically geared to Windows users.

BlueCielo ECM Solutions of Rijswijk, The Netherlands, is shipping InnoCielo Meridian Enterprise 2008, an upgrade to its content management application.

Pointwise Inc. of Fort Worth, Texas, has released its first major update to Pointwise, the company’s meshing software for computational fluid dynamics. The upgrade continues the migration of meshing functionality from Gridgen and adds several time-saving capabilities to Pointwise.

A maker of enterprise simulation software, MSC.Software of Santa Ana, Calif., has released SimManager R3, a content simulation and process management system.

Scanner maker Ideal of Rockville, Md., is shipping its Contex SD Series, a range of high-production, large-format scanners.

Faro Technologies Inc. of Lake Mary, Fla., which makes portable computer-aided measurement hardware and software, has released Faro Scene 4.5, the latest version of its scanning software for use with the company’s Photon and LS Laser Scanners.

A provider of modeling and rapid prototyping systems, 3D Systems Corp. of Rock Hill, S.C., has launched a material evaluation Web site equipped with online pricing capability. The site can be used to order noncommercial stereolithography and selective laser sintering parts.