Panasonic servo drives are controllers used to control Panasonic servo motors, functioning similarly to how a variable frequency drive operates on a standard AC motor.

The mainstream Panasonic servo drives currently in use all employ a digital signal processor (DSP) as the control core, enabling complex control algorithms, digitization, networking, and intelligence. The power devices commonly use drive circuits designed around the intelligent power module (IPM), which integrates the drive circuit internally, and also features fault detection and protection circuits for overvoltage, overcurrent, overheating, under-voltage, etc. A soft start circuit is added to the main circuit to reduce the impact on the drive during the startup process.

The power drive unit first rectifies the three-phase input power or line power using a three-phase full-bridge rectifier circuit, producing the corresponding direct current. The rectified three-phase power or line power is then converted to variable frequency using a three-phase sine wave PWM voltage inverter to drive the three-phase permanent magnet synchronous AC servo motor. The entire process of the power drive unit can be simply described as an AC-DC-AC process. The main topology circuit of the rectifier unit (AC-DC) is the three-phase full-bridge uncontrolled rectifier circuit.