Decentralized drive technology

Decentralized drives: more flexibility, efficiency and Industry 4.0. When is it worth making the switch?

Decentralized drive and automation technology moves functions traditionally concentrated in the control cabinet directly to the machine or close to the drive. By distributing controllers, inverters and electronics, it reduces cabinet space, cabling and system complexity while improving energy efficiency.

This architecture provides greater flexibility for factories that need to adapt quickly to new products, changing demand and increasingly customized production. Decentralized systems allow production lines to be modified and expanded in a modular way, without extensive programming or rewiring, while making it easier to adapt processes to new workflows.

The principle is to move control intelligence and the frequency inverter from the control cabinet to the drive or to a position close to the motor. This distributes control functions throughout the system. However, decentralized technology becomes particularly cost-effective once a plant reaches a certain size and has a sufficient number of distributed drives.

Mechatronics takes this integration a step further by combining the motor, gearbox and converter into a single solution. This saves space and allows the drive to be adapted to each application.