Desktop piezo drive

Paul Boughton

The Ensemble QDe is a desktop nanopositioning piezo drive designed for seamless use with the Ensemble family of drives and controllers.

The QDe connects to any Ensemble controller network enabling coordinated motion between piezo stages and servo axes at much higher rates than other controller or drive products. This power and versatility make the Ensemble QDe ideal for single or multi-axis applications ranging from fundamental scientific research to advanced OEM machine systems.

The QDe provides extreme processing power over a wide variety of applications including point-to-point motion, linear and circular interpolation, multi-axis error correction, and autofocusing. High-speed interrupts and data logging capabilities provide a real-time link to external systems.

The QDe also features high-speed position latching capability and multi-axis position synchroniszed output (PSO) for generation of pulses based on actual position feedback in applications ranging from laser firing to acquisition system triggering.

The QDe enables sub-nanometer positioning resolution at high bandwidths. The QDe capacitive sensor feedback circuitry results in exceptionally low noise levels over the full travel range. An Aerotech developed linearisation method achieves linearity better than 0.01% over the full travel range in closed-loop mode