Industrial gantries use air-bearing technology
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Rockwell Automation product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Apr 12, 2006
Anorad Europe reckons it is the first to apply air bearing technology on a standard industrial gantry system.
Anorad Europe reckons it is the first to apply air bearing technology on a standard industrial gantry system.
Although air bearings are a mature technology used on ultra-high-precision single- and two-axis positioning systems, they have so far been too expensive to be deployed in the general manufacturing environment.
A specific application recently required a customised system to be designed, engineered and assembled by Anorad Europe, in Holland.
Crucial to the user was the minimisation of vibration when the gantry was moving.
Both the lower axis and the bridge axis of the resultant gantry are equipped with Anorad's epoxy cored, zero cogging, linear motors in combination with the air bearings.
Position measurement is via a 20um pitch linear encoder scale, and the controller's software interpolates the measurements to give a 10nm resolution.
Travel is 600 x 600 x 150mm and repeatability is an impressive 0.5um per axis at the point of interest.
Accuracy achieved is an equally remarkable 4.5um per axis.
For information Anorad has constructed air bearing systems up to 5m travel in previous projects.
Additionally, the machine features a z-axis for focusing.
This fourth axis is also driven by an epoxy core linear motor and has cross roller bearings and pneumatic counterbalance mechanism.
The motion control panel is based on Anorad's four-axis SpiiPlus-PCI controller coupled with linear amplifiers in a custom 19in rack, also manufactured at Anorad.
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