News and New Products

Programmable servo filters smooth motion control

By Warren Webb -- EDN, 4/28/2005

Targeting medical, scientific, and general-automation applications, Performance Motion Devices recently announced the Magellan-PCI motion controller with dual biquad filters. Available in one-, two-, three-, and four-axis versions, the high-performance Magellan-PCI motion-control card supports dc brush, brushless, microstepping, and pulse and direction motors. The dual biquad filters can produce two polarities of lowpass output, as well as highpass, bandpass, and notch filters (Picture).

Additional features include trajectory generation, servo-loop closure, quadrature-signal input, motor-output signal generation, servo trace, on-the-fly changes, and commutation. The device supplies servo loop rates as fast as 50 μsec/axis, a 5 million-count/sec quadrature-encoder-input rate, and pulse and direction output as fast as 5 million pulses/sec. The card accepts input parameters, such as position, velocity, acceleration, deceleration, and jerk, and automatically generates the programmed trajectory. Magellan-PCI prices start at $638 (OEM quantities).

Performance Motion Devices, www.pmdcorp.com.