Push, turn, slide, latch, halt: a few of the latest medical-equipment subsystems include servo controllers smaller than your thumb, belt conveyors that don't stretch, and a three-axis gantry that hits 2 gs and 2 m/s.

Medical Design, May, 2005 by Reitz, Victoria

The do-it-yourself engineer assigned to build a machine with a motion-control system could buy, assemble, and debug the components. And while the education provided by that process might be valuable, it's also likely to be a hard lesson in what not to do. A more efficient route is probably to purchase as many subsystems as possible and get those working as a team.

To minimize your frustration and slow the growth of gray hair, we've uncovered several subsystems aimed at medical equipment. The general trend is that these units are smaller and more capable than the ones that preceded them.

Micromotors automate lab tests

A major challenge in medical machine design is the fast and target-oriented control of several items such as spot plates....