Date
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27/01/2010 ‘Snake arm’ robots unveiled by Bristol’s multi-award-winning pioneer

27/01/2010 ‘One quarter of the value’ of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner – manufactured in the UK

27/01/2010 Scotland’s leading innovation centre ‘graduates’ nine young tech companies

The Gibson Index contains profiles on some 35,000 early stage start-ups, University spinouts, SME veterans, technology-led consultancies and business partnerships. It forms the world’s first comprehensive national small company database of any major nation.

The index is the result of an intensive research project by the writer and author Marcus Gibson, a prolific contributor to The Financial Times newspaper, and his team of researchers and correspondents from around the UK – in a project started more than 10 years ago.

It seeks to highlight the UK’s unique treasure store of small technology companies - which is one of the most important but least understood ‘Crown Jewels’ of the British economy.

Subscribers to the database include UK Government organizations, blue chip British companies, academic institutions, finance houses and economic development organizations keen to keep in touch with the fast moving world of technology and small SME in the UK.

Latest News on Small British Companies:

27/01/2010	‘Snake arm’ robots unveiled by Bristol’s multi-award-winning pioneer
OC Robotics, the Bristol company which has developed snake-arm robots for use in difficult-to-reach locations, has finally launched its Explorer range of robots, based on their work in the aerospace sector. The snake-arm robots fit into the mid-range with diameters from 40mm to 150mm, with a range of length and payload variants for each diameter said Dr Rob Buckingham – MD. A snake-arm robot is a bit like the human spine. It is comprised of a large number of vertebrae. It is a tendon driven arm with wires terminating at various points along the length of the arm. The result is that the curvature and plane of curvature of each segment can be independently controlled. A motor is used to control the length of each wire independently. The control software calculates the necessary lengths of all the wires to produce the desired shape. The operator uses a joystick to drive the tip. The computer does the maths to make the arm follow. This tip-following capability enables a snake-arm robot to avoid obstacles and follow its nose into complex structures. OC Robotics won the Queens Award for Enterprise in the Innovation category in 2009. And in 2005 OC Robotics won the IEE Award for Innovation in Engineering in the robotics and control category. Finally, OC Robotics was a MacRobert Award finalist in 2006, organized each year by the Royal Academy of Engineering as the ‘Nobel prize for engineering achievement’. A snake-arm robot is a bit like the human spine. It is comprised of a large number of vertebrae. It is a tendon driven arm with wires terminating at various points along the length of the arm. The result is that the curvature and plane of curvature of each segment can be independently controlled. A motor is used to control the length of each wire independently. The control software calculates the necessary lengths of all the wires to produce the desired shape. Contact: Dr Rob Buckingham, 0117 314 4700 - rob@ocrobotics.com
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27/01/2010	‘One quarter of the value’ of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner – manufactured in the UK
As the 787 took to the skies recently from Seattle/Everett’s Paine Field it was destined to be first the first of some 840 Dreamliners on order, with the first scheduled for delivery late next year. What few know is that 25% of the value of the aircraft comes from the UK, including one important part, the landing gear, made by manufacturer Messier-Dowty. When bidding for the landing gear was opened, manufacturer Messier-Dowty came to the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre with Boeing, at the Advanced Manufacturing Park in Rotherham, to see if it was feasible to make landing gear parts from a new grade of titanium alloy. Boeing were looking to reduce the weight of the landing gear components while retaining the strength and durability, and AMRC engineers worked with Messier-Dowty to help reduce the machining of the titanium 5553 components by a factor of 18, and reduce their tooling costs by 30%. As a direct result of this, Messier-Dowty became the first British company to win a contract to supply the entire landing gear for a Boeing aircraft. www.messierdowty.co.uk
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20/01/2010	Scotland’s leading innovation centre ‘graduates’ nine young tech companies
The Hillington Park Innovation Centre near Glasgow provides support and offices to startups, and it recently saw the successful exodus of Essential Viewing, Infinis,Kelvin Connect, Virtual Interconnect, RIM, Safehinge, Supremis, Sysnet and X402. In total it has created 81 jobs and an aggregate turn over of £2.3m. Ross Clark, Director of Hillington Park Innovation Centre, said: “Not many businesses would take pride in seeing their clients move on, but that is why we exist. We have helped nurture these companies to a point in their development where they can stand alone in the highly competitive business place of the 21st century. That is a great result, one we are proud of and one that endorses the business incubation ethos.” The Innovation Centre is now only 60% occupied but it hopes to recruit new high potential startups to fill the spaces. Two new companies, biotech business Pharmacells Ltd and renewable energy company Statkraft, are due to move into the Centre, and two of the graduate companies, Infinis and X402, have remained on the Hillington Business Park, moving into new premises in Merlin House. www.innovationcentre.org