Off-the-shelf inertial platform stabilisation

Inertial platforms are commonly found on ships, yachts, unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAVs), drones, ground mobile vehicles and armored vehicles and include applications such as airplane Sat-Com internet and TV dishes and laser pods.

IPS uses a combination of Elmo’s motion controllers, high-precision miniature servo drives, new embedded Software-in-the-loop (SIL) control and Elmo Application Studio II (EASII) software tool. This combination creates a ready-to-use solution that can shorten development time by up to 12 months by enabling customers to use their own control algorithms.

Elmo’s motion controller supports any feedback characteristic, including inertial measurement units (IMUs) and gyros both in analog or digital form. This simplifies and shortens implementation, eliminating the need to receive gyroscope or IMU signals from the servo drives. Instead, the digital or analog IMU signal is received at the motion controller and processed using the customer’s specific position and velocity compensation algorithms.

Communicating via fast EtherCAT (between 100 µs to 250 μs), the motion controller transmits calculated, synchronized corrective actions to the servo drives and motors, streamlining communication and resulting in precise, reliable and deterministic motion, vital for highly sensitive inertial stabilisation.

This advanced motion control solution enhances overall accuracy, speed and throughput, and ensures fast, accurate, real-time responses for inertial stabilisation.