Spindle Control means controlling high speed motors (usually Brushless DC motors) in applications such as machine tool cutting, drilling, centrifuges, cryo-pumps, bar code readers, rotating marking and scanning systems, spin coating, and more. What connects all these applications is the need to drive the motor at high rotation speeds sometimes exceeding 50,000 RPM, and with high efficiency and minimal motor heating.
High Speed Pick and Place in this motion application will focus on the control of mechanisms used for electronics, motor, and textile production where an actuator head rapidly moves back and forth. High speed pick and place encompasses a wide range of machines including SMT (Surface Mount Technology) Pick and Place, Die Bonding Equipment, IC Insertion Machines, Motor Winding Machines, Embroidery Machines, Automated Label Applicators, and more.
Robotic Wheel Drive means controlling wheels used to propel robotic devices such as warehouse robotics, rovers, agricultural robots, robotic lawn mowers and a wide array of mobile devices. Some such devices have two primary drive wheels but three, four and even higher numbers of drive wheels are possible. The unique motion control application that ties these machines together is the challenge of slip control and navigation over uneven and physically diverse terrain.
Robotic Gripper Control specifically means control methods associated with getting a robotic 'hand' to grip an object safely - applying neither too much or too little force. Too much and the object may be crushed or damaged, and too little and the object may be dropped during robot arm motion. Looking at this problem more generally though this combined position and torque control problem is relevant to a broad category of applications including screw cap applicators, cobots, press fit equipment, surgical robotics, and more.
Gantries are mechanical devices that move orthogonally in three dimensions. They form the basis of a wide variety of systems that process liquids, biological samples, industrial materials, and print, cut, or otherwise operate on materials. Gantry Control involves the synchronized control of motion functions such as point-to-point transfers, path following, pipette/cuvette management, and pick and place operation.
Pan & tilt pointing means motion control of a mechanical system that can ‘pan’ (rotate around a vertical axis) and tilt (rotate around a horizontal axis). There are a large variety of machines that use a pan & tilt pointing mechanism including security cameras, laser pointing systems, fire control systems, film production equipment, radar control systems, and more.
CAM profiling is a general purpose motion technique utilizing a pre-stored look-up table of desired positions driven by an incoming command encoder datastream. CAMs are especially useful for encoding profiles which don’t follow a standard envelop such as a trapezoidal or parabolic profile. While originally used just to replicate mechanical rotating CAMs, electronic CAM profiling has grown to provide an array of profile generation and position compensation functions.
Microscope control means motion control of automated microscopes, also called automated digital microscopes or more broadly automated microscopy. Such systems generally contain three dimensions of very precisely controlled motion; an XY table that moves the sample and a Z axis which focuses the lens/sensor element. Automated microscopes are a vital part of a broad array of equipment such as blood analyzers, biological and chemical automated assay machines, semiconductor capital equipment, photonics, and much more.
Indexers, sometimes also called front end loaders, are general purpose devices that operate in the vertical dimension and form the basis of storage and retrieval systems as well devices such as Semiconductor SMIF-pod access systems. The focus of this motion application will be control of the vertical axis motion, but many storage and retrieval systems couple the vertical axis with a robotic arm or actuator to deliver the carried object to its final storage location.