Siemens' Distributed Drives—also called decentralized drives—are part of the SINAMICS family and represent an architectural shift away from the central control cabinet. Instead of housing VFDs centrally, these drives are installed directly on or near the motor in the field, enabling shorter cable runs, lower thermal losses, and simplified plant design.

The Core Logic: Control at the Point of Use

The defining principle is proximity. By placing the drive at the application, motor cables shrink dramatically, which reduces power loss, improves electromagnetic compatibility (EMC), and can eliminate the need for shielded cables and extra filters. This cabinet-free design also frees up floor space and distributes heat generation across the plant rather than concentrating it in one enclosure. High ingress protection—typically IP65 or IP66—allows the drives to operate reliably in harsh, washdown, or dust-laden environments.

Key Product Families

The portfolio spans simple to demanding tasks:

SINAMICS G110D — The entry-level distributed drive for simple conveyor applications. Power range 0.75–7.5 kW, with V/f control and AS-i communication. All power ratings share identical mounting footprints, and an integrated isolation switch allows individual drives to be powered down without interrupting the supply to others.

SINAMICS G120D — The higher-performance distributed drive for demanding horizontal and vertical motion. Also 0.75–7.5 kW, but adds vector control (SLVC/VC), torque control, PROFIBUS/PROFINET communication, encoder evaluation, and integrated positioning functionality. It offers regenerative feedback, returning braking energy to the grid rather than dissipating it as heat, and includes a comprehensive safety suite (STO, SS1, SLS, SSM, SDI) certified to SIL 2/PL d.

SINAMICS G115D — A complete, pre-commissioned drive system combining gearbox, motor, and converter in a single order number. It is optimized for horizontal conveying, offers IP66 protection and an operating range of −30 to +55 °C, and supports modular electronics replacement in under 15 minutes. Over 200 drives can be commissioned from a single station via PROFINET web server and the SINAMICS Multi Drive Manager.

ET 200pro FC-2 — A distributed frequency converter designed as part of the SIMATIC ET 200pro I/O system, requiring an interface module to operate within the ET 200 architecture, with a power range starting at 1.5 kW.

Where They Excel

Distributed drives are ideally suited for intralogistics, airport baggage handling, automotive conveying systems, and material handling lines—environments characterized by long conveying distances, many drive points, and space constraints where a central cabinet would require excessive cable runs. The G120D extends this into vertical motion and positioning tasks such as monorail systems and hoist applications, while the G115D targets large-scale horizontal conveyor networks with its system-level ordering and rapid maintenance design.

In essence, Siemens' distributed drives trade the traditional cabinet architecture for field-level intelligence—bringing variable speed control, safety, and in the G120D's case, regenerative energy recovery to the exact point where motion happens, with the robustness and system integration to match.