Introducing Beckhoff’s XPlanar transport system
At MachineBuilding.Live 2024, TEN Editor Mark Simms talks to Mark Richards, UK sales manager at Beckhoff UK, about the company’s XPlanar transport system.
The intelligent XPlanar transport system combines the advantages of conventional systems and supplements them with a unique magnetic levitation technology. With its floating 2D product transport, the planar motor system opens up a whole host of new possibilities.
Users benefit from the individual freedom of movement afforded by driverless transport systems, with the ability to transport individual goods to any location via any route, either within a single machine or between several. In addition to this flexibility, XPlanar offers all the dynamics of a linear motor to facilitate cycle-time-optimized linking of individual production steps.
XPlanar also simplifies individual production steps considerably, making the degrees of freedom and positioning accuracies familiar from robotics available for 6D product processing. For the first time ever, the transport system itself handles the positioning of a product during processing. The levitation effect replaces any and all mechanical guiding components. Cleaning and maintenance requirements are drastically reduced.
