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Product Briefing Outline: PI has introduced the world's first PCI-bus digital nano-positioning controller for closed-loop piezoelectric positioners & scanners. The new E-761 motion controller is designed to provide more flexibility and better overall value than any other digital piezo controller on the market today, according to the company.

Problem: Imaging, metrology, scanning microscopy and surface analysis require a combination of high-speed motion control and high-resolution vision. They also require extremely fast data acquisition and precise synchronization between the imaging and motion control devices. Peripheral components with PCI bus interface are ideal for achieving these tasks, because the PIC-bus was designed to give high-bandwidth access to the microprocessor in the PC. PI has now introduced what it claims to be the worlds first commercially available, fully digital piezoelectric nanopositioning controller on a PCI board. The PCI allows for very fast communication and easy integration with devices such as frame grabbers-a definite plus in real-time data acquisition applications or when operating multiple controllers simultaneously.


Solution: These controllers can control piezo-driven nanopositioning systems with up to three logical axis (four integrated piezo amplifiers). With flexible coordinate transformation, sensor and actuator axes need not be parallel to each other and rotation can be added to a single module XY-motion system, or tilt errors can be reduced for motion accuracies in the sub-nanometer range. E-761 are based on extremely low-noise power amplifiers, highly advanced 24-bit digital analog converters (DAC) and powerful 32-bit digital signal processors (DSP). Having PCI-board format the E-761 digital controller can be easily implemented in all current PCs and industry-PCs, allowing for easy integration with other devices such as frame grabbers. The PCI interface with its high bandwidth allows for a very fast communication between software and controller, which is require when controlling several axis.


Applications: Alignment and tracking of optics.

Platform: In order to achieve the highest degree of linearity over the entire travel range, the E-761 uses a number of innovative techniques: A hardware-based system in the sensor-processing electronics known as ILS (Integrated Linearization System) and a firmware-based system that uses polynomial linearization for the entire electronics and mechanics sections. The controller comes with a large variety of software tools, ‘LabView' drivers and ‘Windows' DLL's for easy setup, system optimization and integration in application-specific programs.


Availability: June 2006 onwards.