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The government‐sponsored Foresight programme, begun four years ago with the aim of bringing together industrial companies with academic and research organisations to improve the competitiveness of the British economy, has now entered a second round of activity focusing on developing its range of tasks. In the area of sensing technology three themes are being taken up for collaboration by Sira during the coming year: industry and the environment; security and observation; and Earth observation. Last November Sira sponsored a conference to introduce these themes and recently Professor Richard Brook, director of Sira, and Anne Burns, technology marketing manager, talked to Jack Hollingum about the way ahead.

A man with a mission is Ghassan Matar, managing director of Geodetic Technology International, a company that is beginning to make its mark in rapid prototyping and machine tool applications. But that is just the beginning. The hexapod technology used in its machines can be turned equally to any application requiring a volumetric repeatability of 10µm at the working end, and the end effector can be a milling cutter, a gripper, a water jet cutter, a laser or other device. Jack Hollingum went to meet him and Eric Harris, product specialist.

Describes some of the successful innovations to be seen at Unishoe (Universal Shoe Machine Company Limited), such as a fully automated sole preparation line; a stress reliever lamp for removing creases from shoe uppers; machines for fitting metal shanks to the “shankboards” for stiffening insoles; and machines for conditioning and lasting uppers into shape.

Studies safety measures in cars, such as airbags and automatic seat‐belt tensioning. Provides details of how airbags function and of single‐point sensing, three‐point sensing, side‐impact sensing and covers other developments.

Explains how radio frequency tagging has established itself in Australia and the USA, where 915MHz is acceptable for this purpose and pulsed power allows read distances of 7m or more to be achieved with a passive (no batteries) tag. Points out that in Europe there is no one acceptable frequency available in every country, so a pioneer Australian company has adopted 458MHz for UK use and 433MHz for Germany and some other countries. Describes some of the successful applications so far and points to future possibilities including monitoring of BSE in cattle.

Inductive guidance system for the SmartCart AGV allows very fast installation and re‐layout using adhesive stainless steel strips on the floor. Vehicles are self‐contained and can be individually programmed. The manufacturer gains its experience in AGVs through contract manufacture and has now designed its own system.

A Siemens research team has developed a sensor that remains passive unless an event such as a pressure change occurs, in which case it generates its own power and transmits a signal to a receiver. The next generation of the sensor is expected to measure only 2 × 5mm, and when manufactured in bulk should be a low cost device. Applications are envisaged to remotely controlled light switches and radiator thermometers, home, office and warehouse security, and many other areas. A current project, reported to be making good progress, is to mould the sensors into vehicle tyres to give continuous information on tyre pressure, axle load and other parameters. The sensor, which was developed at the Perlach R&D Centre of Siemens, near Munich, has been nominated for the prestigious German Zukunftspreis (Future Award).

Shows how two events one week apart earlier this year pointed the way for the UK to put itself in the vanguard of the next stage of intelligent robotics development. First came the publication of a report Technology and Market Review of the Robotics Sector which studied the state and prospects of robotics in seven sectors of UK industry and proposed that special efforts, including demonstrator projects should be focused first on the food industry sector and then on the medical sector. The second event was the launch of SILVER SIG, a Special Interest Group for Intelligent VEhicles and Robotics. A major participant in SILVER is the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency, DERA, which is committed to linking commercial industry with government research ‐ in this case in the development of intelligent vehicles.

Mechatronics received close attention in October 1998, first at a day conference organized by the IEE looking at the Japanese experience, and then at a lecture on intelligent mechatronics. Japanese experience was looked at from the standpoint of Tom Salusbury, who had been Science and Technology Secretary at the British Embassy in Tokyo, and David Wilson, of Cambridge Consultants, who had been on two fact‐finding visits. These were followed by two speakers, Stephen King and Rick Burbridge, who worked for subsidiaries of Japanese companies, and Ian Ross, whose company, KeyMed, is closely associated with Olympus in Japan. Intelligent mechatronics was reviewed by the new chairman of IEE’s Control Division, Geoff Roberts.

The annual statistical report of investment in robot automation in UK manufacturing industry during 1998 shows some slippage since the record level of 1997, though the total of installations during the year was still higher than in earlier years. The decline was mainly attributable to a sharp fall in installations by the automotive industry, which is the largest purchaser of industrial robots. A healthy sign, though, is the increasing number of installations by other industries, notably rubber and plastics. International comparisons, though, serve to underline the tough remarks by Eric Drewery at the press launch of the report.