Aerotech partners with Micronix for nanopositioning

The collaboration expands the core competencies of each company, allowing for further industry applications that require powerful, easy-to-use nanopositioning products. Together, the companies are now offering a wider range of steppers, controllers, drives and software for positioning in the most advanced applications.

The LASER trade fair in Munich was the first event where both partners presented themselves together in Europe. While Aerotech manufactures high-precision motion control components and systems for laboratory and industry applications, ranging from components such as motors, controls and drives to full multi-axis systems, Micronix produces miniature adjusters with various drives (linear motor, voice coil and piezo stepper) for a wide range of applications in industry and research. The core competence of Micronix lies with manufacturing micro- and nanopositioning components for biomedicine, research, optics and various other areas. Specialities are linear and rotary tables with millimetre or milli-degree lift, which are significantly smaller than conventional components.

As part of their partnership, Micronix and Aerotech will be distributing and marketing each other's products from now on. Brian O'Connor, director of product and market development at Aerotech Inc, states: "The modular approach of Micronix to miniature nanopositioning expands our product portfolio of nanopositioning and allows us to address additional automation applications." According to O'Connor, this strategic partnership aligns with the core strategy of Aerotech, ie enabling the the customer to optimally control all kinds of positioning systems from a single control platform. Utilising a comprehensive control platform has the benefits of simpler integration, which, in turn, reduces costs for the user while also increasing throughput by co-ordinating axes with low latency. Aerotech's premium product portfolio will enable Micronix to address applications in core markets even more comprehensively. Aerotech's forward-thinking piezoelectric nanopositioners complement the Micronix miniature piezo steppers with large lift. Another central point is Aerotech's industry-leading control platform for complex motion control requirements.

In the next few months the Aerotech-specific product configurator will be expanded to add Micronix piezo products. As a result, Micronix stepper and servomotors may also be controlled via drives by Aerotech in the future. Simon Smith, European Director at Aerotech, concludes: "Our teams have put increasingly more effort into building a strong foundation for this strategic partnership for the sake of our customers in industry and research."

Follow the links for more information about the products available from Aerotech and Micronix.