Over the past years, manufacturing processes have increased in complexity and the move toward modularity of machines has caused the safety functions to move away from the classical centralized safety designs (for example, deactivation of the complete machine using a main switch) and into the machine control system and/or the integrated AC drives.

There has been quite a bit publicized on saving energy with AC Drives. This article will serve to set the facts straight and provide practical real-world application estimates on what a user can realistically expect to get in return for their AC drive investment.

As drive technology continues to advance, drive features are constantly being added by the manufacturers to both the hardware and software designs. Along with these advancements comes new terminology to describe or promote these advancements. This article defines a few of the terms that have come about in recent years and help improve the understanding of AC drives.