Bell-Everman brought two working gantries, not static booth displays, to Automate 2026 in Chicago: a ServoBelt dual-bridge gantry in an XXYYZZ configuration, and a 12-foot-beam dual pick-and-place gantry running an XZZ layout.

Both are built around the company's ServoBelt linear drive, which pairs a rack-and-pinion-style drive with an anti-backlash belt design — the pitch is precision motion over spans that stretch past 100 meters without the length limits of a screw-driven axis.

For integrators building large-format cells — big sheet handling, gantry welding, warehouse-scale pick-and-place — it's a reminder that the overhead gantry, one of automation's oldest layouts, is still where a lot of the engineering is happening.

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