Product category:
Stepper and Servo Drives, Motors, Controls
News Release from: Micromech | Subject: Nanomotion ceramic servomotors
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 14 February 2005
Ceramic servos move piezo technology
further
The employment of piezo technology in motion and positioning control solutions is not new but the technique employed in Nanomotion's ceramic servomotors is innovative and original.
The employment of piezo technology in motion and positioning control solutions is not new but the technique employed in Nanomotion's ceramic servomotors is innovative and original Many earlier piezo-drive systems use a number of piezo elements arranged in line to step the positioning stage along, by passing the holding force from one to the other sequentially
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 26 Feb 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
From mains power to motion control in three steps
Stepper Systems just can't get any simpler now, according to Micromech, as the motion and control specialists have introduced socket to stepping with only three components
Warpdrive offers flexibility in single package
Long-established drives supplier Superior Electric, have launched Warpdrive, their latest micro-stepping positioner, targeted at small OEM's and stand-alone applications
Other "flexure" types of stage move the load by the amount the element expands when biased by a voltage gradient.
Some fine rotary lead-screw stages employ a "tuning- fork" style operation that causes rotation in a specific direction when a sawtooth waveform is applied to the piezo element.
In other words they can act only as a simple actuator or provide limited rotational speed but none of the above systems are able to effect high speed or forces.
The Nanomotion patented mechanism uses a novel x-y bias on the piezo element to produce an elliptical motion at the driving element tip.
When excited at a carrier frequency of 40kHz with a varying potential, the major axis of the ellipse can be modulated to drive a linear surface at variable speeds using an almost standard servo speed control interface of +/-10V DC.
As the element tip range is around 6um at maximum deflection it is evident that exceedingly slow and smooth motion can be obtained at much lower voltages of bias.
The motor resolutions go down as low as 5nm and 300um/s.
Using a DC mode from the AB 5 amplifier, amazingly the tip can be displaced from +/-10nm to +/-6um and then returned to the original position.
The motors are available from 0.4 to 3.0kg force when coupled in tandem from one drive amplifier can produce linear motion at speeds greater than 300mm/s with forces in excess of 98N.
This makes the motors extremely powerful for fine focusing and stage positioning.
They are now being extensively applied to exacting processes by companies in the semiconductor, communications and pharmaceutical industries, the drive mechanism also lends itself ideally to peripherally driven rotary stages as used in telescopes and precision rotary tables.
• Micromech: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Engineeringtalk email newsletter
• Engineeringtalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
