Motors, Actuation & Drives
The muscle of a robot: how motors turn current into torque, and the drives and actuators that move the joints.
- 01
Servo Motors: The Ultimate Guide
RC vs industrial vs smart serial servos: closed-loop control, cascaded PID, RMS-torque and inertia sizing, and the thermal failure modes datasheets hide.
- 02
Brushless DC Motors (BLDC) for Robotics: The Ultimate Guide
How BLDC motors turn current into torque: Kv vs Kt, six-step vs FOC, sensored vs sensorless, and how to spec one for a robot joint or drone.
- 03
Brushed DC Motors for Robotics: The Ultimate Guide
How brushed DC motors turn volts into torque: the R and Ke equations, the torque-speed line, PWM and H-bridge drive, brush life, and sizing math.
- 04
Stepper Motors & Drivers: The Ultimate Guide
How stepper motors and drivers work: microstepping, the torque-speed curve, NEMA frames, A4988 vs Trinamic TMC, closed-loop steppers, and honest sizing.
- 05
Robot Actuators: Electric, Hydraulic & Pneumatic. The Ultimate Guide
Compare electric, hydraulic, pneumatic, SEA, QDD, and soft robot actuators with real power and force-density numbers, equations, and a selection cheat-sheet.
- 06
Motor Controllers & Field-Oriented Control (FOC): The Ultimate Guide
Field-Oriented Control from the power stage up: Clarke/Park math, the control cascade, tuning, sensorless observers, and picking ODrive vs Moteus vs VESC.
- 07
Power Electronics & Motor Drives: The Ultimate Guide
The power stage that turns a battery into three-phase motor current: inverters, gate drivers, SiC vs GaN, PWM, losses, and thermal sizing.
- 08
Pneumatics for Robotics: The Ultimate Guide
How compressed air moves robots: the circuit, force = pressure x area, Cv/Kv valve sizing, cylinders, vacuum and pneumatic grippers, with worked math.
- 09
Hydraulics for Robotics: The Ultimate Guide
How hydraulic power makes extreme force density: pumps, servo valves, cylinders, force = pressure x area, and why robotics is drifting electric.
