Servo Motors
Servo Motors are a rotary actuators or motors that allows for the precise control of angular position, acceleration and velocity, capabilities that a regular motor does not have. It makes use of a regular motor and pairs it with a sensor for position feedback. The controller is the most sophisticated part of the servo motor, as it is specifically designed for the purpose.
The Servo Motors basically consists of a DC Motor, a Gear system, a position sensor and a control circuit. The DC motors get powered from a battery and run at high speed and low torque. The Gear and shaft assembly connected to the DC motors lower this speed into sufficient speed and higher torque. The position sensor senses the position of the shaft from its definite position and feeds the information to the control circuit. The control circuit accordingly decodes the signals from the position sensor and compares the actual position of the motors with the desired position and accordingly controls the direction of rotation of the DC motor to get the required position. The Servo Motor generally requires DC supply of 4.8V to 6 V.
Servo motors ARE controlled by controlling its position using Pulse Width Modulation Technique or Servo Drive. The width of the pulse applied to the motor is varied and send for a fixed amount of time. The pulse width determines the angular position of the servo motor. For example a pulse width of 1 ms causes a angular position of 0 degrees, whereas a pulse width of 2 ms causes a angular width of 180 degrees. Servo motors are used in applications requiring rapid variations in speed without the motor getting overheated. Servo Motors are used in the machine tools, packaging, factory automation, material handling, printing converting, assembly lines, and many other demanding applications robotics, CNC machinery or automated manufacturing.
