Home >> Nano Motion Control System Components

The ability to perform 1 nm moves requires a tightly integrated motion control system. The more stringent the specifications a system must meet, the more tightly the components must be integrated. While the challenge of achieving 1 nm steps with a complete Aerotech system is not trivial, the challenge of achieving 1 nm steps with a system made up of components from multiple suppliers is extremely difficult, if not impossible. The following sections briefly describe these key components. Additional detail can be found in later pages.

Controller Type
Aerotech offers three different controller families:
• Automation 3200 (A3200)
• Ensemble
• Soloist

Though the performance is identical between each of these products, each has unique features that are suitable to different applications.

A3200
The A3200 controller is capable of synchronous motion for up to 32 axes. This PC based controller utilizes a distributed architecture to communicate with drives across a high-speed deterministic network. With all of the high-speed loop closure (position and current) done on the drives, performance does not degrade as axes are added.

Ensemble
The Ensemble controller is capable of synchronous motion for up to 10 axes. This stand-alone controller utilizes a master node to coordinate the motion across the slave axes. Each of the slave axes connect to the master through a high-speed Aeronet bus to ensure synchronization across the axes. The PC is only required for initial setup.

Soloist
The Soloist is a stand-alone, single-axis controller. For those applications that do not require synchronous motion, the Soloist is ideal. Like the Ensemble, the Soloist requires a PC only for initial setup. The tables that follow show a comparison between the three different controller families.

Integrated Development Environment
Aerotech’s Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is a suite of software tools that serves as the primary interface between the user and their system. Regardless of the controller chosen (A3200, Ensemble, or Soloist), the tools are the same. The IDE consists of the following elements:

• Motion Composer
• Configuration Manager
• Digital Scope

- Servo Tuning
- Loop Transmission
- Dynamic Controls Toolbox
- Encoder Tuning
- Enhanced Throughput Module

• Motion Designer
• Diagnostics
• User Interface
• Dynamic Calibration Management System

Aerotech has spent over 40 years perfecting each of these tools to deliver the highest performing motion system. From the trajectory generator to our tuning screen, Aerotech’s focus has been on pushing the technology and performance of its products. Each of these tools is covered in more detail in the following sections.

3rd Party Software
For those users wishing to integrate the controller products into their software module, Aerotech offers a variety of different interfaces to the most common development environments. These include:

• Microsoft .NET 2.0
• LabVIEW®
• EPICS
• C

Power Electronics
The power electronics needed to perform these 1 nm steps require the use of high-performance linear amplifiers with low noise interpolation electronics. The power electronics are packaged as discrete amplifiers (ML Series), 19” rack mount (Npaq) or desktop unit (Epaq). The performance of each of these products is identical.