Electric servo drives refer to those components of a machine that control its motor to achieve the best possible performance. Servo drives ensure that the machine ramps up to the final speed as quickly as possible, operates at this speed for as long as possible, reduces the speed as late as possible and comes to a stop on time. Servo drives are mainly used in machine and system building, in decentralised systems as well as in positioning systems (rotary, cross and multi-axis systems).
Electric servo drives receive commands (optional: control commands) from a process control system, a PLC or from a position controller (optional: motion controller). They execute them and report on this process, its completion and any malfunctions. Should the load of the machine change, electric servo drives can regulate the power autonomously and absorb the change.
Modern servo drives support various fieldbus systems, including Ethernet/IP, EtherCAT®, PROFINET, Modbus as well as CANopen and DeviceNet®. Older servo drives usually still have a serial interface.
At Festo you will find electric servo drives as servo drive controllers or stepper motor controllers.