Technology Blog

Correctly sizing an AGV/AMR battery can help avoid common pitfalls like oversizing, which can increase overall weight and cost. In our last blog post, we walked through the AGV power conversion chain and the losses at each stage. After understanding component efficiencies, the next task is to determine battery capacity from the motion profile.

We’re excited to introduce our new R-Series Nano — the R47 (CANopen) and R48 (EtherCAT) — for applications where size and mass are critical and the operating environment is unforgiving. Both servo drives are built on our proven NanoPlus platform and engineered to survive temperature extremes, vibration, shock and humidity.

Battery selection is one of the most critical AGV/AMR design choices, with major impact on performance and cost. Most battery selection procedures begin with a fixed energy budget, often determined early on in the overall design process. But because all losses within the drivetrain detract from the AGV/AMR’s available runtime, overcompensating for these losses can drive up battery size, weight and cost.

In our last blog post, we delved into how pulse width modulation (PWM) causes current ripple in permanent magnet (PM) motors and can lead to increased motor heating. Finishing our blog series, we offer strategies to reduce the magnitude of current ripple.

Resolution, accuracy and repeatability play crucial roles in determining the precision of a position sensor and ultimately the performance of the overall system. This is why it’s crucial to understand how resolution, accuracy and repeatability relate in the context of encoders. The previous entry in our blog series reviewed resolution. Now, we finish up by reviewing accuracy and repeatability and how they relate to encoder precision. We will also discuss how calibration can correct for errors caused by eccentricity or poor accuracy.

When specifying a position sensor, it’s critical to understand how resolution, accuracy and repeatability impact overall system performance. Precision is affected by the entire motion system and is commonly influenced by mechanical errors like eccentricity, backlash and bearing runout. Eccentricity and backlash are the most significant contributors to mechanical errors and require calibration to correct.