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Concept
Servomotor
Summary
A servomotor (or servo motor) is a rotary actuator or linear actuator that allows for precise control of angular or linear position, velocity, and acceleration. It consists of a suitable motor coupled to a sensor for position feedback. It also requires a relatively sophisticated controller, often a dedicated module designed specifically for use with servomotors.
Servomotors are not a specific class of motor, although the term servomotor is often used to refer to a motor suitable for use in a closed-loop control system.
Servomotors are used in applications such as robotics, CNC machinery, and automated manufacturing.
A servomotor is a closed-loop servomechanism that uses position feedback to control its motion and final position. The input to its control is a signal (either analog or digital) representing the position commanded for the output shaft.
The motor is paired with some type of position encoder to provide position and speed feedback. In the simplest case, only the position is measured. The measured position of the output is compared to the command position, the external input to the controller. If the output position differs from that required, an error signal is generated which then causes the motor to rotate in either direction, as needed to bring the output shaft to the appropriate position. As the positions approach, the error signal reduces to zero, and the motor stops.
The very simplest servomotors use position-only sensing via a potentiometer and bang-bang control of their motor; the motor always rotates at full speed (or is stopped). This type of servomotor is not widely used in industrial motion control, but it forms the basis of the simple and cheap servos used for radio-controlled models.
More sophisticated servomotors make use of an Absolute encoder (a type of rotary encoder) to calculate the shafts position and infer the speed of the output shaft. A variable-speed drive is used to control the motor speed.
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