Aerotech is Your Light Source Motion Control Expert
Aerotech Inc. has been dedicated to the science of motion control for more than 4 decades. Our passion has always been to help scientists, engineers and designers to reach their goals, whether those goals involve cutting edge research, improving productivity, or developing a new technology in genome sequencing, laser processing, diffraction, tomography and crystallography.
We do this by making the most advanced and precise motion control and positioning systems in the world. We employ dozens of engineers dedicated to pushing the envelope of mechanical components, software and advanced control algorithms. By remaining a vertically integrated, privately held company, we maintain the highest possible degree of quality control and product performance. No one else understands the intricacies of electro-mechanical systems the way we do. From basic goniometers to fully integrated electromechanical systems, Aerotech’s engineering staff has the experience and expertise to design, build and test a system to your exact requirements. From concept design to final sphere of confusion measurements, a dedicated project engineer will work step by step to fulfill the project requirements.
The ABRS and ABRT air bearing rotary stages offer the smoothest velocity control available, and when combined with Aerotech’s state of the art control electronics and software, you can’t get a better solution for high-accuracy rotary positioning in X-ray diffraction, tomography and protein crystallography experiments.
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Complete, Single-Source Solutions
Aerotech’s expertise in complete system solutions gives you a more complete reliable product and a single point of contact for all questions.
Incorporating electromechanical systems, advanced controls, software, electronics, safety, data acquisition and PLC functions into a single platform makes setup and operation faster and easier.
Your single point of contact for system design, production and qualification will be a project engineer with experience in system design for diffraction and crystallography experiments. This makes the entire process easier.
Sophisticated, multi-axis systems are completely customized to suit user needs and specifications. Most systems incorporate linear, rotary, vertical, and tip-tilt motion with air bearings, mechanical bearings, ballscrew and direct-drive technologies.
These are all integrated with a granite base and welded steel substructure.
Precision metrology operations like alignment, calibration and sphere of confusion measurements are carried out on the complete, assembled goniometer system.
- Full subsystems designed, manufactured and tested together as a unit
- Controls and electronics are precisely matched to mechanical components for optimum performance
- Aerotech systems incorporate safety, high-end data acquisition and PLC functions all completely within the control platform
- Custom electro-mechanical systems can be designed to exact specifications
- Active or passive vibration isolation
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| X |
±1 mm |
±0.5 mm |
| Theta |
±2 arc-sec |
±0.5 arc-sec |
| Z |
±1 mm |
±0.5 mm |
- Air bearing used for X axis to provide sub-micron flatness and ±1 arc second pitch, roll, and yaw.
- Unique direct-drive carrier stage supports Theta slip-ring to preserve outstanding rotary performance.
- 3-point mount Z axes offer precision lift, tip, and tilt motion for entire assembly.
- Piezo staging accommodated by sophisticated slip-ring arrangement to allow 360 degree continuous travel in Theta
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Control consoles and cabinets include:
- Safety relays and interlocks
- IO
- Controllers
- Amplifiers
- PC and user interface
- No wiring or integration required
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Smooth Motion and Ultimate Velocity Stability
Very low velocity error comes from high-precision air bearing surfaces along with state-of-the-art linear amplifers and controllers. Aerotech’s expertise in electro-mechanical systems has led to the optimization of control, amplifier and brushless servo technology. This combination is ideal for X-ray diffraction and tomography experiments.
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Aerotech’s linear and rotary air bearing stages like the ABRT series are manufactured to the highest standards and offer the smoothest velocity control and best error motion possible.
Aerotech’s brushless, slotless servomotors offer subnanometer in-position stability and provide a means to reject disturbances from external sources.
Linear amplifiers like the HLe series offer the best velocity control available by providing the ultimate in system stability and noise immunity. |
- Air bearings have excellent stiffness, error motion and stability characteristics
- Brushless, slotless servo motors have excellent in-position stability and can reject disturbances
- Linear amplifiers are noise-free and ultra-high performance
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Custom Systems For Diffraction and Protein Crystallography
Aerotech has extensive expertise in custom electromechanical systems and integration with advanced control systems.
Multi-axis motion including linear, rotary and angular components is the foundation for a high-end goniometer or diffractometer system, and such a system will include advanced controls like PSO and the dynamic controls toolbox. These systems also undergo extensive testing and qualification through a variety of precision metrology operations including two-dimensional calibration and sphere of confusion measurement.
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| X |
±1 mm |
±0.5 mm |
| Theta |
±2 arc-sec |
±0.5 arc-sec |
| Z |
±1 mm |
±0.5 mm |
- Air bearing used for X axis to provide sub-micron flatness and ±1 arc second pitch, roll, and yaw.
- Unique direct-drive carrier stage supports Theta slip-ring to preserve outstanding rotary performance.
- 3-point mount Z axes offer precision lift, tip, and tilt motion for entire assembly.
- Piezo staging accommodated by sophisticated slip-ring arrangement to allow 360 degree continuous travel in Theta
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- Precision arc-sec and micron-level alignments for the smallest possible sphere of confusion
- Custom-engineered three-point vertical lift and tip-tilt solutions for hundreds of kilograms
- Air-bearing linear and rotary axes for ultimate velocity stability
- Software tools to compensate for base vibration and mechanical resonance
- Highly coordinated multi-axis motion
- Rotary axes aligned to with 5 arc-second orthogonality.
- Up to 50 kg sample / load mass capability.
- 1.4 m beam work-height
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Goniometric cradles to handle loads from a few grams up to hundreds of kilograms |
Axis |
Range |
Accuracy |
Repeatability |
Step Size |
| X |
100mm |
+/-1.0 micron |
+/-0.5 micron |
1.0 micron |
| Ydetector |
200mm |
+/-3.0 micron |
+/-1.0 micron |
0.5 micron |
| 2θ |
320 degrees |
+/-3.9 arc sec |
+/-0.5 arc sec |
<0.1 arc sec |
| γ |
10 degrees |
+/-5.0 arc sec |
+/-1.0 arc sec |
<0.1 arc sec |
| θ |
320 degrees |
+/-3.9 arc sec |
+/-0.5 arc sec |
<0.1 arc sec |
| Υ |
200mm |
+/-3.0 micron |
+/-2.0 micron |
1.0 micron |
| χ |
+/-4 degrees |
3.6 arc sec |
3 arc sec |
<0.1 arc sec |
| Ø |
+/-4 degrees |
3.6 arc sec |
3 arc sec |
<0.1 arc sec |
| Xsample |
100mm |
+/-2.0 microns |
+/-1.0 micron |
0.5 microns |
| Zsample |
100mm |
+/-2.0 microns |
+/-1.0 micron |
0.5 microns |
| Ysample |
25mm |
+/-1.0 microns |
+/-0.75 micron |
0.53 microns |
Notes:
1. Rotary axes aligned to with 5 arc-second orthogonality.
2. Up to 50 kg sample / load mass capability.
3. 1.4 m beam work-height.
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Vacuum Compatible Systems
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Three vacuum level options:
Low vacuum option (10-3 torr)
Standard vacuum option (10-6 torr)
High vacuum optoin (10-8 torr) |
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Our wide range of standard products can be easily configured for vacuum applications by specialized techniques including:
- material selection
- surface preparation
- hardware venting and elimination of trapped volumes
- lubricant selection
- thermal management
- magnetic field control
- cleaning
- bakeout
- handling and packaging |
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Fast Results - Dynamic Control Toolbox Enhances Performance
Minimize Step and Settle times and trigger data acquisition on the fly with built-in functions and graphical tools.
- Dynamic controls toolbox enhances performance and reduces cycle times.
- PSO enables faster, more accurate data collection by triggering outputs in realtime.
- Combined with some of the highest performing rotary air bearing stages for diffraction and tomography experiments, there is no compromise between speed and quality of results
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Iterative Learning Control reduces position errors over a sequence of cycles to improve performance at the PVT command level.
Aerotech’s Motion Simulator and Dynamic Controls Toolbox include built-in functions for minimizing step and settle times and maximizing performance. These tools use both feedback and feedforward techniques to enhance performance and reduce cycle times at all process levels. |
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Triggering data acquisition on the fly is possible with the Position Synchronized Output (PSO) feature. PSO is easily programmed to generate output pulses (or sequences of pulses) based on realtime position feedback. Programmability and minimal latency make data acquisition faster and easier than ever before. |
Nanomotion Technology
To achieve the stated goals of high performance nanopositioning systems – long travel, high dynamic performance, high accuracy, high resolution, and easy-to-use software – Aerotech used its considerable experience acquired over 40 years in the field of mechanics, magnetics, electronics, computing, digital control systems, and electromechanical systems engineering to develop a line of products to meet the current and future requirements of the nanotechnology and synchrotron industries.
Guaranteed Performance
Aerotech regularly performs precision metrology operations on stages, components and systems.
We follow ISO as well as ANSI standards as part of our ISO-9001 certified production process to guarantee and document the results you need.
Precision metrology operations support the kind of qualification needed for highly specialized systems in diffraction and tomography, and Aerotech’s electromechanical systems ensure a long lifetime with little to no degradation in performance.
Whether it is a simple one dimensional calibration table or a sphere of confusion measurement, your project engineer will work with you to make sure everything works the way you need it to work.
Linear
- Accuracy
- Repeatability
- Straightness
- Flatness
Rotary
- Accuracy
- Repeatability
- Axial and radial error motion
- Tilt error motion
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Multi-Axis
- Sphere/circle of confusion
- Multi-axis precision alignments
- Axes of rotation aligned to each other
- Orthogonality
General
- Velocity stability
- Step size
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Click
on plot
Accuracy and repeatability are plotted along with environmental conditions for every axis.
Aerotech’s production facility contains isolated and temperature controlled testing laboratories as well as an ISO Class 6 cleanroom.
We have a wide variety of equipment available for testing including laser interferometers, capacitive probes, autocollimators, digital indicators, precision optics, and granite reference surfaces.
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Special testing can include 2D calibration and dynamic testing at specified accelerations and velocities
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Fast, Easy Setup and Programming
Aerotech’s graphical software suite is designed for ease of use, increased performance and reduced setup time. The Ensemble motion controller has been used in protein crystallography, diffraction, and a variety of test, inspection and positioning applications. Combined with custom electromechanical systems, Aerotech’s complete solutions are unmatched.
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Graphical setup tools minimize startup time.
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Click on screen for larger image.
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Using Aerotech’s software you can have your system up and running in minutes. Setup wizards, detailed help files and manuals make everything faster and easier, so you can spend less time doing setup and more time getting real data from experiments like diffraction or crystallography.
Our full graphical software suite includes tools for setup, operation, advanced system characterization, optimization and programming.
The Ensemble Controller includes EPICS and Tango drivers for easy integration and programmability. |
Convenient, integrated 19” rack-mountable chassis contains all drive and control electronics
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- Increased performance
- Ease of use
- Reduced setup time
- EPICS and Tango compatibility
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