Before Iris Dynamics...
Linear electric motors were inherently position or velocity controlled. What this means is that the motor driver was fed a command by a controller to either move to a specified position, move at a specified velocity, or a combination of the two. The downside to this behavior is that many industries could better utilize motors that react to outside forces, especially in human-machine interactive applications. The methods used to get a traditional motor to react to outside forces are cumbersome, introduce points of failure, and add control loop latency resulting in an unconvincing user experience.
So we came up with a solution...
We have developed methods and tools to build force controlled motors that use generated magnetic fields produced by electromagnetic coils in the motor housing to impart Lorentz force onto permanent magnets contained within a shaft, rotor, or other object.
This design contains just a single moving part.
This increases reliability and lowers maintenance requirements. Proprietary magnetic geometries, software, and the elimination of any gearing means there is zero backlash and no cogging or grain felt by the end user regardless if the motor is being backdriven or not. The motors are small in form and consume much less power than competing technologies allowing for installation in smaller spaces with simpler, more economical, electrical & HVAC infrastructure.
Most importantly, as inherently force controlled motors, they sense their own force output and thus they can feel when a user imparts a force onto them. Control loop times of less than 1ms allow the motor to respond to these forces or other inputs nearly instantaneously while low friction contactless characteristics permit the resolution of that response to be on the scale of milligrams.
The result is an affordable and efficient motor that performs extraordinarily quick and precise movements while remaining silent.