Miniaturized Motion Control Technology For The World's Largest Pair Of Binoculars

Three-Axis Positioning System With DC-Micromotors

If you want to set things in motion, you will always require some form of drive. However, conventional technology employs relatively large designs and is too cumbersome for many applications. The trend toward miniaturization, though, has definitely made its mark on motion control engineering. Small, powerful electric motors with a diameter of only a few millimeters guarantee pioneering innovations in a wide variety of fields. It is not only industrial automation that benefits but, to an increasing extent, other sectors as well. Nowadays modern miniature drives are even enhancing science, as demonstrated by the following example of an application in the field of astronomy. A combination of DC-Micromotor, encoder, and a low-backlash planetary gearhead ensures that optical assemblies are positioned with precision.

The most powerful standalone telescope in the world will be put into operation on Mount Graham in the US state of Arizona in 2004.

The astronomers are particularly interested in setting sights on distant galactic systems, young double stars and newborn suns. In principle, this Large Binocular Telescope (LBT), which has a height of over 20 m and weighs over 600 t, is an outsized pair of binoculars. Its two reflectors each have a diameter of 8,4 m and together they make up an approx. 100 M2 dish for collecting light. In this way it can even collect the radiation from weakly illuminated objects at the limits of the universe being observed. The interaction of the two reflectors mounted 14,4 m apart provides the telescope with a resolution that would correspond to that of a pair of binoculars having a diameter of 23 meters. Each reflector resembles a giant honey-comb made from borosillcate glass and weighs 15,6 t.