Gantries optimised for accuracy, speed and application-specific needs

With three standard gantry product lines (A-341, A-351, A-352), including air-bearing and mechanical-bearing designs, PI's engineering team can quickly modify and optimise gantries for specific customer applications. All designs leverage FEA-backed development to ensure structural rigidity without unnecessary mass - addressing one of the seven core engineering challenges in gantry systems: maintaining stiffness across long spans.

Equipped with absolute linear encoders delivering 1nm resolution, PI's precision gantry systems eliminate time-consuming homing cycles and ensure outstanding positional accuracy. The ironless, friction-free, cog-free motor architecture delivers smooth, vibration-free motion with fast acceleration and exceptional velocity control.

Modern precision gantry systems must address complex coordination issues - especially racking caused by drive mismatches in dual-driven bridges. PI solutions mitigate such errors through ACS motion controllers that support gantry-alignment routines to compensate for angular misalignments using virtual rotation axes. Special gantry yaw control algorithms also allow for active rotation (Theta-Z) while locking the linear axes when the gantry is equipped with flexure joints.

Timing precision is critical when coordinating motion with process steps like imaging or laser activation. The hardware timed outputs, synchronised directly with encoder feedback, ensure flawless event positioning - eliminating image blur or part misplacement. Additionally, thoughtful cable management, including specialised drag-chain routing for clean environments, assures reliable repeatability.

These gantries meet the needs of a range of applications including optical Inspection, photonics test, laser processing, semiconductor metrology, micro-assembly, 3D printing and medical component manufacturing.