Moog

Moog is an American group with a long tradition in motion control, known for servo valves and actuators for aerospace and defence, but also for industrial servo motors. The materials we hold are dominated by two worlds: electromechanical rotary and linear actuators for aircraft, and the CD series of brushless servo motors for machines. It is mainly the latter that bear on robotics, although the CD datasheet lists robotics only as one application alongside presses and plastics.

The rotary actuators are a family of models 220, 820, 863, 935 and 965, with torques from several tens to 2,500 in-lb. The Model 935 has a peak torque of 600 in-lbf (about 68 Nm), a continuous torque of 150 in-lbf, a weight of up to 3.9 lb, a four-stage spur gear train, a brushless motor with a closed position loop and an RS-485 or PWM interface. It runs on 21–32 V DC, over a temperature range from −40 to +71°C and altitudes up to 65,000 ft. The Model 965 is stronger: peak torque of 2,500 lb-in, ±90° of travel and a weight of 11.5 lb. The typical applications in the datasheets are unmanned aircraft, target drones and eVTOL vehicles, not humanoid robots.

The CD (Compact Dynamic) servo motors are low-inertia synchronous AC motors with permanent magnets, designed for applications where positioning times of 30 ms or less are the norm. Six flange sizes, from 40 to 190 mm, give a continuous stall torque from 0.16 to 74.3 Nm and rated speeds from 2,000 to 11,000 rpm.

In which robots? We have no robot in the catalogue with a named Moog component, so we will not point to a model. The 935 and 965 actuators go into aviation, and the CD servo motors into machines, as in factories. In special robots, described in “Specialist robots”, Moog may appear as a drive supplier, but our datasheets do not document that. In humanoid robots and cobots, drives are usually chosen from the lighter segment, such as Kollmorgen, Faulhaber or Harmonic Drive, and from the makers' own actuators.

For the cost and performance of a robot, the Moog products in the datasheets are high-end drives with aerospace qualification, so their weight and price are higher than a service robot needs. They make sense where resistance to vibration, temperature range and reliability count, that is, in military and space robots or machines for harsh conditions. For comparison, the working principle of an actuator in a humanoid robot is explained in “Actuators in Humanoid Robots”, and reading the numbers in catalogues is eased by “How to Read a Robot Datasheet”.

For Poland and Europe we found no named distributor or representative in the materials; the actuator brochure gives only an address in Blacksburg, Virginia. To be honest: a Polish integrator has to ask the manufacturer directly about local support.