What is a servo drive for grinding machines?

A servo drive (servo amplifier) – also called servo controller or servo amplifier stage – is the control and power electronics that drive the servo motor of a grinding machine. Its function corresponds to that of a frequency converter for a conventional AC motor, but with significantly higher precision.

Servo drives are part of the servo system and are used above all in high-precision positioning systems. They control the servo motor via the three control variables position, speed and torque and thus enable highly accurate positioning in the drive train – today a top product of drive technology.

Use in modern automation

Servo drives are an important component of modern motion control and are used in industrial robots, CNC machining centres and other automation systems. In particular, the control of permanently excited synchronous servo motors is an international focus of development.

The control technology behind it

Modern AC servo drives for grinding machines typically use a three-loop control method with current, speed and position control based on vector control. The speed control loop plays a key role here: a good design of the speed controller decisively determines the dynamics and accuracy of the entire servo system – and thus the quality of machining.

This technology forms the heart of our CNC grinding machines and provides the µm-precise infeed movements for which our machines are valued.