Motion Control Technology
Motion control technology for Industry 4.0 era of digitization: Industrial PC based controller and PLC hardware with EtherCAT and fieldbus IO, CODESYS and IEC 61131-3 programming language standard. Application software ready function blocks (FBs) for custom multi-axis servo motion control, tightly integrated real-time communication FBs for vision systems and robots.
Motion control platform technology for any machine motion control application.
From industrial robotics, CNC machines, XYZ tables, web handling machines, mobile robots, material handling to surgery robotics.
The hardware and software platform is based on Industry 4.0 technology for integrated PLC, motion control, vision, robotics and IoT. This is the platform technology that is the foundation of global digitization of all factory operations, manufacturing, everything that involves motion, so as to monitor and control every single I/O device anywhere in the world from anywhere in the world.
The motion controller, along with the application software that runs on it, is one of the key components. What makes a motion controller application specific is the “application specific software”. Hardware components are rather standard and does not vary much form one application to another. Design based on globally standard hardware and software benefits from economies of scale. That is a powerful factor in the success of any technology and is the best state of art industrial automation technology.
The expression in automation industry is that “The name of the game in automation is software”. Oracle Robotics provides the software tools and solutions that make the motion control in automation easy. Oracle Robotics provides “Application Ready Software Solutions” – just turn it on, adjust a few parameters and ready to go.
Our Motion Control Solutions Platform is a motion control technology based on industrial PC hardware with EtherCAT real-time communication and CODESYS, IEC-61131-3 and PLCopen standard software. Oracle Robotics Motion Control Solutions Platform provides solution for any motion control application.
Through our motion control platform, we bring the application domain expertise into the hands of the customer. Application software development time is reduced to a few days from weeks and months.
There are five major component groups in a state of art motion control system as follows:
- HMI Device: any smart device (Laptop PC/MAC/Tablet/Smart Phone) with web browser capability or OPC/UA capability, or just a monitor.
- Motion Controller based on EtherCAT and CODESYS. Hardware is based on industrial PC bus hence leverages the economies of scale in hardware.
- EtherCAT slave servo/stepper drives and motors, EtherCAT slave I/O modules; from any supplier or mix of suppliers.
- Vision System: modular and self-contained vision system; cameras, vision processor, monitor.
- Robotic controllers.
The Motion Controller is the “brain”, vision system is the “eyes”, drives and motors are the “muscle”, robots are “other smart devices”, HMI is the “human command center” of the system. Communication between Motion Controller and EtherCAT drives and IO is via EtherCAT,. Communication between the Motion Controller, Vision Systems, Robots are via Ethernet/IP. IoT connection to Internet is via MQTT over standard Ethernet. With these configurable components designed as a state of art Industry 4.0 technology, the Oracle Robotics Motion Control Solutions platform can be customized for any machine motion control application.
Motion controller is based on industrial PC, EtherCAT hardware and CODESYS/IEC 61131-3 software. Hardware and software are based on global open standards, benefiting from economies of scale, flexibility, expandability, rugged design, supplier independence. Any EtherCAT compatible servo drive and IO module can be added from any combination of suppliers.
Our software technology tightly integrates communication between the motion controller, vision systems and other robot controllers in the automation project. We provide tested software function blocks for all major vision system suppliers and industrial robots for real time communication.
The End-user can simply make choices to configure the communication Function Blocks, and plug-and-play to implement the tightly synchronized motion control communication.
The main fieldbus for high-performance motion control is EtherCAT. The hardware/software platform supports any of the major and minor fieldbus protocols, such as CANbus (CANopen, J1939), EtherNet/IP, Modbus, PROFINET and more.