Celera Motion has added the Aura Absolute Chip Encoder Series to its line of precision rotary and linear optical encoders with MicroE technology. Aura uses a short wave-length LED for precise absolute position decoding. Celera said the series is designed for collaborative robot arms, robot joints, robotic grippers, surgical robots and exoskeletons.

An incremental scale track and advanced sensor produce pure sinewave signals, enabling high resolution interpolation with run-speeds greater than 80k rpm. Eccentricity, caused by off-center scale mounting and bearing runout, is the largest source of angular error.

Two encoders are often employed to compensate for the error increasing cost and power consumption. Aura solves the eccentricity problem with its built-in compensation algorithm thereby eliminating the need for the second encoder.

“Customer demands continue to increase for higher levels of repeatability and accuracy. The Aura Absolute Chip Encoder and its built-in eccentricity compensation better meet customer requirements in critical component applications,” said Mike Mainvielle, vice president of product management & marketing, Celera Motion. “Aura’s ease of installation and absolute position feedback allow it to deploy faster and provide reliable performance when space is a premium: therefore, this translates into saving time and money.”

Aura’s benefits include:

• Absolute position feedback for high performance, high volume designs
• High resolution and accuracy for precision control needs
• Wide alignment tolerances provide ease of integration resulting in higher productivity
• Built-in eccentricity compensation for minimal angle error and easier install
• Low power dissipation for tight temperature budget applications
• Connectivity meets industry standard interface requirements: BiSS-C, SSI & SPI
• AqB plus index provides additional incremental data to be used as secondary position info
• Global application support available to meet customer’s integration challenges

This Aura encoder will handle the scales ranging from 16 mm OD to 45 mm OD. Two standard scale sizes are available: OD 18 mm / ID 7 mm and OD 33 mm / ID 21 mm. Celera said custom scales are also available.

Celera also recently introduced its Capitan Series of premium Ingenia servo drives. The Capitan Series offers three servo drives – the XCR, NET and CORE. The XCR is a ready-to-use version, while NET and CORE are pluggable module versions. You can check out the spec sheet below for further comparison of the three models. The Captain Series servo drives weigh as little as 18 grams and offer standby power consumption down to 1.12 watts to deliver up 99% efficiency.