Motion Control/​Automation

Explore the latest developments in motion control and automation. Discover innovative advances from NASA and major research labs in robotics, autonomous vehicles, industrial automation, PID controller applications, motor drives and power transmissions.

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Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
Sick Stegmann Inc. (Dayton, OH) has available a new Guide to Motor Feedback Systems for Electric Drives. The guide provides an overview of Sick Stegmann’s motor feedback systems for high precision speed and position...
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Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
The Magellan motion control processor from Performance Motion Devices, Inc. (Lincoln, MA) comes in one, two, three, and four-axis chip set versions that can control DC brush, brushless DC, micro stepping, and pulse &...
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Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
Holjeron (Tualatin, OR) has introduced the Aqua Series I/O modules for DeviceNet™. The module is designed for outdoor use in temperatures as low as -30 C and as high as 70 C. They are available in four analog input, four analog...
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Articles: Robotics, Automation & Control
Reactive, avoidable equipment repairs are a leading contributor to lost productivity in industrial manufacturing operations. Parts with an average selling price of just a few...
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Articles: Robotics, Automation & Control
Advances in digital hardware technology and software innovations now allow a single digital servo drive to be configured to work in a variety of machine control architectures.
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Application Briefs: Motion Control
QuickSilver Servo Motors Drive Autonomous Vehicles
The design of remotely operated, autonomous battery-powered vehicles places special requirements on motion control systems. High torque at low speeds is needed to climb over obstacles, while higher speed operation is needed for cruise speed. Efficient operation from lower voltages (12V to 48V)...
Application Briefs: Motion Control
What do you do if you’re in the business of producing a wide variety of metal presses to meet special customer requirements? You choose your system components wisely, and...
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Application Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Maxon’s MCD EPOS integrated power drive was used by a wine and liquor bottling operation to control the cutting of shrink-wrapped film over the bottleneck and cork or cap.
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Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
The STM Drive+Motor solution from Applied Motion Products (Watsonville, CA) is a stepper drive and motor unit fused into a single device that saves space, wiring and cost, when compared with conventional motor/drive...
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Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
Holjeron (Tualatin, OR) has unveiled conveyor control assemblies and 24 VDC motor-driven rollers able to operate in extreme temperature and humidity conditions.
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Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
The SPiiPlus HP Series motion control module from ACS Motion Control (Plymouth, MN) is available in PC-based, standalone, or rack-mounted multi-axis controllers that support direct-connected servo or stepper motors and...
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Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
The Accelnet Micro servo drive from Copley Controls (Canton, MA) mounts directly onto pc boards and delivers 6 A at 90 V for brushless and brush-type servo motors. It works in a range of system architectures and is compatible with...
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Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
A 25V synchronous buck converter DirectFET® MOSFET chipset from International Rectifier (El Segundo, CA) is designed for point-of-load (POL) converter designs, and server, high-end desktop and notebook computer applications. It...
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Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
The ADAM-5081 high-speed quadrature encoder and counter module from the Industrial Automation Group of Advantech (Cincinnati, OH) provides isolation of 2,500VDC, a high-speed frequency mode (5 Hz to 1 MHz), and a counter code...
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Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
The MX Series linear actuator from Pacific Bearing Company (Rockford, IL) comes in belt-driven vertical and horizontal configurations, and in a choice of sizes. The actuator has large cam rollers to carry high loads at greater...
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Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
Linear Position Sensor
The A40-HR 20P linear position and velocity sensor from Visi-Trak (Charlottesville, VA) provides control resolution exceeding 0.001 in. at 200 inches per second. The auto-calibrating sensor can sense any stroke length, suiting it for hydraulic and pneumatic cylinders or any linear actuator requiring high speed and precision....
Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
The MINI-K® model Kinechek® speed regulator from Deschner Corp. (Santa Ana, CA) is available in ½, 1, 1¼, and 1½ inch stroke lengths with a maximum capacity of 400 lbs. There are no sliding seals, and no heavy springs to...
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Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
The Bassoon servo drive from Elmo Motion Control (Westford, MA) has an absolute encoder and delivers up to 1.9 kW of continuous power, or 3.8 kW peak. The fully programmable drive can operate in position, velocity, and current modes...
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Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
High Speed Motion Recorder
The SBOC-M/SBOI-M compact vision system from Festo (Hauppauge, NY) provides simplified fault localization and reliable analysis and diagnosis of high-speed motion sequences.
Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
Designed for decline conveyors with a fail-safe requirement, the EC100 RollerDrive from Interroll Corp. (Wilmington, NC) has a mechanical rotor locking break that prevents drifting on inclines while ensuring smooth operation,...
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Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
The quiet-running Peristaltic Pump Gear Motor (PPGM) from Crouzet North America (Vista, CA) generates half the noise of comparable motors. The motor is available in 16 and 30-watt models and features a gearbox torque of...
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Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
SCHUNK Inc. (Morrisville, NC) has expanded its EGN series of servo electric two-finger parallel grippers to include sizes 80 and 160 in addition to the existing size 100. The new sizes have a stroke per finger of 8 and 16...
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Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
The design, fabrication, and microgravity flight-testing are part of a continuing development of palm-sized mobile robots that resemble spiders (except that they have six legs apiece, whereas a spider...
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Articles: Motion Control
Solving a machine vision application, whether it involves quality inspection, part verification or any number of additional tasks, requires taking several factors into...
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Articles: Robotics, Automation & Control
Machine vision systems are playing an increasingly important role in many industrial applications, whether it is counting parts on an assembly line or examining surfaces for defects....
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Articles: Robotics, Automation & Control
Recent advances in motion control and machine vision technologies present tremendous opportunities for Automated Optical Inspection (AOI) systems. Thanks to recent developments in these fundamental...
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Application Briefs: Imaging
The Meister Group, a Belgian industrial group supplying the automobile market, successfully deployed Cognex’s machine vision system to help its robotic assembly cell sort out...
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Application Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
IDS Camera Automates Inspection
Until now, machine-based surface inspection methods have checked visual quality by means of direct or transmitted light in conjunction with a camera system. When it comes to the automated inspection of reflective and smooth surfaces, however, these methods involve problems. The resulting reflections need to be either...
Products: Robotics, Automation & Control
The Slipstream Series from LM76 (East Longmeadow, MA) 1 linear stage features 0.2mm/300mm accuracy and 0.1mm repeatability. Available in travel lengths to 6 meters, the precision stage has T-Slots on three sides for...
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