At the 2018 Motion Control Industry Awards today, Elmo Motion Control’s Gold Twitter high-density servo drive won the Technical Innovation of the Year award. The event recognized Elmo’s commitment to delivering high performance, intelligence, and power in limited space across a wide range of applications and industries.

The Gold Twitter can drive any type of motor with single, dual or gantry loop configurations. It can perform as a fully functioning one-axis motion controller or serve as part of a distributed network of drives over EtherCAT.

The drive is well-suited to industrial or harsh environments and is used in applications such as surgical robotics, SCARA robots, exoskeletons, automated and rail-guided vehicles, automated warehousing, aerospace, collaborative robotics, and semiconductors. The drive’s compact size, versatility, and robust design allows it to be mounted anywhere, such as on robotic joints, on a moving load, or in close proximity to the motor.

“We’re very pleased to have been recognized with this award,” said Gary Busby, managing director at Elmo, upon receiving the award. “The Gold Twitter packs an immense amount of intelligence and power into a miniature electronic device, and its versatility opens up limitless applications in which it can perform.”

“With this drive, Elmo has taken servo drive power density to the next level, and it is a wonderful feeling to have had this achievement recognized by our peers in the motion control industry,” he added.

Weighing roughly 20g and measuring 35 mm at its widest point, the drive can be mounted to PCBs within machines that require high current in limited space. The drive fully supports EtherCAT and CANopen communications. It is compliant with all safety and EMC standards, and it incorporates STO (SIL-3).

As well as performing high-precision motion tasks, the drive’s high-resolution current sensing allow it to be deployed as a smart sensing device for precision telemetry.

About Elmo Motion Control

Elmo Motion Control designs, produces and implements comprehensive, field-proven motion control solutions that make clients’ data-driven, smart machines smarter. The company’s R&D department combines intelligent motion-control technologies, real-time programming and control algorithms with advanced digital hardware to enable leaner, more flexible machines.

Controlled by the Elmo application studio (EAS) — a software environment that cuts integration time and maintenance costs — Elmo’s servo drives and multi-axis motion controllers minimize a machine’s footprint and cabling, improve throughput, and give original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) a competitive edge.

Founded in 1988, the company is headquartered in Israel, employs more than 350 staff worldwide, and has a dedicated presence in the U.S., China, Germany, Italy, Korea, Poland and the U.K.