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Precision Torque Control means control of motors for the purpose of measuring, or applying, a precise torque or force. Precision torque control is used in a wide array of industries and machines including bottle cap applicators, torque wrenches & screwdrivers, hardness measuring equipment, and more.
Precision XY Stage Control means motion control of XY or XYZ positioning stages that use linear motors for their motion. Precision XY and XYZ stages are used in a broad array of machines including microscopes, automated assay equipment, semiconductor capital equipment, optical equipment, scientific instruments and much more.
Centrifuge control means controlling a high-speed rotating motor (usually a Brushless DC motor) such that it accelerates, coasts, and decelerates thereby separating via centrifugal force the payload - typically liquids, gels, or gasses. We often think of centrifuges as operating in a biological laboratory, and that certainly represents a big segment, but centrifuges are ubiquitous being found in chemical processing equipment, gas separation equipment, scientific analysis equipment and more. What connects all these applications is the need to drive the motor at high rotation speeds sometimes exceeding 50,000 RPM, with high efficiency and minimal motor heating.
Peristaltic pump control means controlling the special mechanical characteristics of this type of pump as it rotates. Peristaltic pumps are used in a broad range of industrial and medical applications but are probably best known in patient treatment applications where bodily fluid such as blood is continuously drawn, processed, and returned to a patient. Because of the dramatic changes in reflected load as the pump rotates, peristaltic pump control presents unique challenges to minimize pressure fluctuations and pulsing in the amount of delivered fluid.
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.
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.
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.