Ready-For-Operation Much Faster: Preconfigured Heavy-Duty Hexapods for Various Different Travel Ranges, Load Capacities and Velocities

Physik Instrumente (PI) now offers a series of six pre-configured heavy‑duty Hexapods for precision assembly. This enables PI to cover a large range of applications with standard solutions.

The six-axis positioning systems are available for travel ranges of 220 mm on the XY plane and 100 mm in the Z direction or 340 mm on the XY plane and 205 mm in the Z direction. The maximum tip/tilt or rotational angle is between 30 and 60°. Three drive screws with different pitches allow velocities of 20 to 50 mm/s with loads between 400 and 1000 kg. Even at high velocities, the heavy-duty Hexapods achieve step sizes of around 2 µm and a repeatability of ±2 to ±5 µm.

In case of further modifications to these pre-configured versions, e.g., variable arrangement of the joint positions allows rapid and inexpensive realization of Hexapods that are perfectly adapted to the application and customer requirements with respect to geometry, travel range and load capacity.

Large Choice for Loads from 1 kg to 1 Ton

PI offers more than 50 versions of standard Hexapods that are optimized for a variety of applications from ultraprecise fiber alignment for use in vacuums to machine tooling.

Powerful Controller and open Software Architecture

The powerful C-887 digital controller takes control of the six Hexapod axes and two additional motorized single axes. It features vector control, a stable pivot point freely selectable in space and LabVIEW support. Position values can be entered simply as Cartesian coordinates. Optional software for avoiding collisions in restricted workspace is also available.

PI in Brief

Well-known for the high quality of its products, PI (Physik Instrumente) has been one of the leading players in the global market for precision positioning technology for many years. PI has been developing and manufacturing standard and OEM products with piezo or motor drives for 40 years now. In addition to four sites in Germany, the PI Group is represented internationally with ten sales and service subsidiaries abroad.