Dear Subscribers,

With this issue of the ParalleMIC newsletter I am undertaking a campaign for
collecting detailed information from companies producing parallel mechanisms
and posting it in Company Profile sections. I start this with a good example
from Fatronik (http://www.parallemic.org/WhosWho/Companies/Profile005.html).

Many of you are representatives of companies working on parallel kinematics.
Your companies have built expensive products and hired professional web
designers to create visually attractive web sites. Unfortunately, sometimes
these sites are difficult to navigate and frequently not well indexed in search
engines. For example, Neos Robotics has an extraordinarily nice web site which,
however, is poorly indexed on most search engines due to the use of Flash.

ParalleMIC employs keywords like "parallel kinematic(s)", "parallel robot(s)",
etc. on tens of its web pages and consequently is indexed very well. Thus, it
is of no surprise that it attracts more than fifty visitors per day. I am often
contacted by potential customers looking for particular products but naturally
none of them is willing to have his requirements made publicly known. Hence, it
is up to the companies to advertize their products on ParalleMIC.

With that said, I urge those of you interested to contact me for preparing your
Company Profile.

Yours sincerely,

Ilian Bonev
(http://www.parallemic.org)


October 16, 2001
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--ANNOUNCEMENTS--
* The 2002 Workshop on Fundamental Issues and Future Directions for Parallel
  Mechanisms and Manipulators will be held on October 3-4, 2002 in Quebec City,
  Canada. Read the Invitation Letter sent by the organizers
  (http://www.parallemic.org/News/Conferences/Workshop2002.html).
* Jean-Pierre Merlet's "active wrist", in the Hephaist Seiko version is
  currently available in North America through Myostat Motion Control Inc.
  (http://www.coolmuscle.com/wrist.html).

--SITE UPDATES--
* A detailed company profile of the Spanish PKM manufacturer Fatronik has been
  put online (http://www.parallemic.org/WhosWho/Companies/Profile005.html).
* A new section on companies producing mechanical components or software
  applications suitable for parallel robots has been started
  (http://www.parallemic.org/WhosWho/CompComp.html).

--NEW LINKS--
* A press release and an article about the Z3 Head (a 3-PRS parallel mechanism)
  (http://www.cinmach.com/WT2/breakthrough.htm,
   http://www.mmsonline.com/articles/1000rt1.html).
* Teleoperated system via two Stewart platforms (3-UPS parallel mechanisms)
  (http://www.technet.pnl.gov/dme/robotics/proof.stm).
* Stewart platform based prototype tele-manipulator
  (http://www.technet.pnl.gov/dme/robotics/stewart.stm).
* A Stewart platform built at the University of Kassel
  (http://rts-pc1.rts.maschinenbau.uni-kassel.de/RTS/staff/neumann/isr2001_www/isr2001_www.html).
* Hexamove, a Stewart platform
  (http://www.hagenbuch.ch/).
* ADS International, Hexapod Pointing Systems
  (http://www.ads-int.com/pointing.htm).
* Ingersoll's Octahedral Hexapod  {finally!}
  (http://www.ingersoll.com/ind/hexapod.htm).
* Lidax, Hexapod
  (http://www.lidax.com/i_secciones/trab/02.htm).
* MICROMEGA Dynamics, active steering and structural damping interface
  (http://www.micromega-dynamics.com/active_damping_interface.htm).

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