ENGINEERING NEWS IN BRIEF

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                  ENGINEERING NEWS IN BRIEF
                        E-Mail Newsletter

                               No.39
             Issued by the Asian TOP Panel, March2005

           The Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society (CMES)
           The Institution of Engineers, Indonesia (PII)
           The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME)
           The Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers (KSME)

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    According to the agreement made in the 2nd Asian TOP Panel Meeting,
the ENGINEERING NEWS IN BRIEF (E-mail newsletter) has now been edited
by the KSME for the year 2005.

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[Contents]

(1)The 10th China International Material Handling & Logistics Technology Exhibition (Material Handling China 2005) (Source: CMES)
(2) The 10th Beijing Essen Welding & Cutting Fair (Source: CMES)
(3) A Ultra precision stage with 1 nm position resolution (Source: JSME)
(4) REDEEM (Recurrent Education for Development of Engineering Enhanced Medicine) (Source: JSME)
(5) A Face Robot Actuated with Artificial Muscle Based on Dielectric Elastomer (Source : KSME)

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(1) The 10th China International Material Handling & Logistics Technology Exhibition (Material Handling China 2005) (Source: CMES)

The 10th China International Material Handling & Logistics Technology Exhibition (Material Handling China 2005) will be held in Shanghai Everbright Convention Center on May 31- June 3, 2005.
Sponsored by : Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society (CMES)
Approved by: Ministry of Commerce of the People??s Republic of China
Organized by: Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society (CMES)
Shanghai CMP Sinoexpo International Exhibition Co., Ltd.
Shanghai Tycoon Exhibition Service Company Ltd.

The four-day event will be the most comprehensive showcase of material handling and logistics equipment, systems and technologies in China in 2005. Over 400 exhibitors from home and abroad will showcase their productivity solutions, information and service to over 20,000 industry professionals and buyers on the 16,000 square meters show floor.

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(2) The 10th Beijing Essen Welding & Cutting Fair (Source: CMES)

The 10th Beijing Essen Welding & Cutting Fair Co-sponsored by Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society, Welding Institution of CMES, Chinese Welding Association, German Welding Society and Messe Essen GmbH, is to be held at Shanghai Everbright Convention & Exhibition Centre on May 25 -28, 2005.
The highlight of the show is the strategic partner cooperation among Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society, Welding Institution of CMES and Chinese Welding Association, which are three strongest organizations in Chinese Welding industry. The show has obtained strong support from German Welding Society, American Welding Society, Korea Welding Industry Cooperative, Japan Welding Engineering Society and many companies home and abroad. The exhibition space will cover the Eastern Hall and three stories of Western Hall of Shanghai Everbright Convention & Exhibition Center.
As the manufacturing level of Chinese welding equipment increased tremendously, Beijing Essen Welding & Cutting Fair has become the largest collecting and distributing center for welding equipment in the Far East and an important stage to international market.
During the show period, The 3rd China Welding Week will be held jointly by China Welding Association and Welding Institution of CMES. The activity is turned out every four years. There will be The 5th CWA Member Congress, The 10th National Conference on Welding Technology, as well as activities of CWA??s 14 technical commissions and of 11 technical commissions from Welding Institution of CMES.
For more information about these exhibitions, please visit our website www.cmes.org into the English version or contact CMES at fax: 0086-10-68533613, E-mail: zhangq@cmes.org ; suxy@cmes.org.

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(3) A Ultra precision stage with 1 nm position resolution (Source: JSME)

Takahiko Kamimura, SigmaTech co. Ltd

This article introduces a newly developed ultra precision stage which realized 1 nm position resolution by digital feedback control. The stage consists of cross roller guides, a miniature linear scale, a ball screw and a piezo actuator. The miniature linear scale based on diffraction interference method, which senses 1 nm position in resolution. The ball screw and the piezo actuator are placed in a tandem position to drive the stage; the ball screw is for coarse positioning, and the piezo actuator is for fine positioning. A specially designed feedback controller was also developed for the ultra precision stage. The controller equips two kinds of interfaces, RS-232C and GP-IB, which enables us to control (digitally feedback) the stage by an external computer.

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(4) REDEEM (Recurrent Education for Development of Engineering Enhanced Medicine) (Source: JSME)

Takami Yamaguchi, Tohoku University

The REDEEM project is an attempt to re-educate engineers of a wide variety of other fields to make it possible for them to join the biomedical engineering research and development. Based on experiences of long standing medico-engineering collaborations at the Tohoku University, the project was designed mainly to provide background knowledge of biology and medicine with real experiences in the biological experiments that will lower the barriers for the engineers to enter the biomedical fields. It is particularly important for the engineers to learn the way of thinking of medical people, or at least the fundamental differences between the way of thinking of medical, especially that of clinical people, and that of engineers. Most of previous failures of the collaboration took place due to misunderstanding between the medical and engineering people. This is why the project is mainly aimed at the recurrent education of engineers who are already active in their own fields and are trying to find chances to collaborate with medical people. They need a proper means to translate ideas and words expressed apparently in the similar language but sometimes with quite different meaning.
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(5) A Face Robot Actuated with Artificial Muscle Based on Dielectric Elastomer (Source : KSME)

Face robots capable of expressing their emotional status, can be adopted as an efficient tool for friendly communication between the human and the machine. Professor Hyouk Ryeol Choi of SungKyunKwan University presented a face robot actuated with artificial muscle based on dielectric elastomer in Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology (Vol. 19, pp. 578-588, 2005) which is the new title of KSME International Journal. Exploiting the properties of dielectric elastomer, it was possible to actuate the covering skin, eyes as well as provide human?like expressivity without employing complicated mechanisms. The robot is driven by seven actuator modules such as eye, eyebrow, eyelid, brow, cheek, jaw and neck modules corresponding to movements of facial muscles. Although they are only part of the whole set of facial motions, they are successful to generate six fundamental facial expressions such as surprise, fear, angry, disgust, sadness, and happiness. In the robot, each module communicates with the others and according to the desired emotional expressions, the facial motions are generated by combining the motions of each actuator module.

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Editor : Professor Mansoo Choi of Seoul National University,
           Director of General Affairs, KSME
           ksme@ksme.or.kr