Pneumatic Motion Control
Motion control on a budget
Pneumatic linear slides combine aircylinder power with an engineered guide to move loads along a precise path. They're used in everything from simple pressing operations to multiaxis robots. Today, equipment designers can choose from a wide array of linear slides from a host of manufacturers...
World’s First Nonmagnetic Robot Arm
The University of Calgary can boast that it’s got the first surgical robot able to operate in the 1.5 to 3-Tesla fields of magnetic-resonance imaging (MRI) machines. ...
Servopneumatics offers reliable, economical motion
When it comes to motion control, conventional thinking usually produces designs with electromechanical drives and computer-controlled electric motors. While such systems can accurately position within 0.0001 in. and, in some cases, to 1 µm, these solutions are often "overkill" and ignore the cost/benefit relationship in many applications...
Sorting out servopneumatics
Servopneumatic, electromechanical, and proportional-hydraulic control systems all have a place in industrial-automation equipment, product testing, and animation. However, most applications do not need the precision of electromechanical systems or the high forces of hydraulics. Servopneumatics, which includes a controller, linear actuator, valve, and feedback sensors, can meet most requirements and offer substantial savings over the other systems....
Integrated Architecture Simplifies Motion and Machine Control
It's no secret that most every manufacturer today is under the gun to get products to market faster, run their operations more efficiently, and react quicker to market shifts...
Pneumatic actuation basics
Pneumatic actuation plays a major role in today's world of computerized automation. It's reliable, economical, and surprisingly easy to use. Understanding pneumatics is a matter of physics. When air inside a container builds up, pressure magnitude is the same at all points within the fluid. The air also pushes out on its vessel uniformly....
The motion of material handling
Material handling, in most cases, refers to operations where components are moved between processes with little or no value added during the transition. In other words, there are no changes to the form, shape, or content of the materials being moved. As a result, material-handling interval times should be kept to a minimum. ...
