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Taylor made, high torque drive systems
for custom application.
The largest optical telescope system in the world, the ESO-VLT
(Very Large Telescope) project is being erected on top of Cerro
Paranal in the Chilean Andes.
The telescope system, which will expand the boundaries of the
known universe several times over, consists of four 8 m diameter
reflectors operating in parallel. Each of the structures, which
are driven independently, is 24 m tall, weights several hundreds
tons, and must be rotated to track the sky, wind and atmospheric
perturbations notwithstanding, with an accuracy better than
one millionth of arc degree. To achieve such an extreme target
performance, Phase Motion Control designed and manufactured
a 10 m diameter, direct drive PM brushless motor (possibly the
largest ever made) which cradles the entire structure, distributing
the drive torque and doing away with all inaccuracies typical
of mechanical transmissions. |
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| The drive system,
which are controlled by a laser interferometer encoder with
228 bit/rev. Resolution, can index position increments in the
order of a fraction of micrometer on a 10 diameter track and
are rated 150,000 Nm with minimum speed well below 1 rev./year. |
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Paranal Observatory Web Site |
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