Robot designers have to reconcile two conflicting demands: joints that keep getting shorter, lighter and cheaper, and motion that must be increasingly precise, smooth and safe. Collaborative, humanoid and surgical robots push both demands to the limit. Inside every joint sits an encoder, the sensor that tells the robot the exact position of its arm and on which the precision of its movements depends. But how do you fit a precise encoder, immune to motor interference, into an ever smaller joint without adding weight, parts or complexity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This article looks at the problems engineers face, how Netzer Precision encoders solve them, and how EMG2, Netzer’s partner, supports you all the way from choosing the encoder to putting your robot into production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whether they design industrial arms, cobots, mobile manipulators or medical robots, engineers run into the same difficulties at joint level:<\/p>\n\n\n\n