Automation 3200 (A3200) Multi-Axis Machine Controller

Complete motion capabilities include: point-to-point; linear, circular, helical, and spherical interpolation; velocity profiling; electronic gearing; on-the-fly trajectory modification; high speed I/O; camming

1 to 32 axes of scalable, synchronized motion

Utilizes the power of the PC to eliminate the motion control card

Uses commercially available IEEE-1394’s (FireWire^®) determinism for communications between drives and controller

Programmable in native RS-274 G-code, AeroBasic™ command set, C, C++, .NET, VisualBASIC^®, or LabVIEW^® for flexibility

Runs brushless servo, brush, stepper, or voice coil


Aerotech’s ground-breaking, motion, vision, PLC, robotics, and I/O platform, the Automation 3200, is used in many applications in semi, data storage, medical laser processing, automotive, and machine tool industries. The system features a high-performance, software-only motion controller (Nmotion® SMC) that offers 32 axes of synchronized motion control. It is the successor to Aerotech’s performance-leading and widely utilized UNIDEX 500 and 600 PC-based motion controllers. The Nmotion® SMC retains the best features of these previous motion controllers and combines them with an advanced, high performance distributed control architecture to produce a truly state-of-the-art motion, vision, PLC, robotics, and I/O platform.

The Automation 3200 digital automation platform represents a revolutionary advancement over traditional PC-bus-based motion controllers. The A3200 is software-based (no PC slots required) and marries a robust, high performance motion engine with vision, PLC, robotics, and I/O in one unified programming environment. The A3200 utilizes the industry standard super high performance FireWire® (IEEE-1394) network to provide from 1 to 32 axes of synchronized control with no degradation in performance as the axis count increases.

The integration of multiple common automation tools into a single platform provides users the ability to integrate, develop, and maintain the system faster, with lower cost than ever before. For instance, coupling the vision module with the motion system that coordinates a cutting process (laser, drill, mill, etc.) provides the ability to identify the workpiece and its position, and to adjust the position and signal to the cutter all within one system. This integration dramatically reduces wiring and the necessary components, which not only lowers integration and setup cost but also increases reliability.

SOFTWARE

MOTION APPLICATIONS

Click for MODEL COMPARISON

The Automation 3200 is capable of 32 axes of synchronized motion through one interface. Aerotech has designed the current platform to be expandable to 62 axes of synchronized motion control.

The Automation 3200 addresses a major shortcoming of today’s multi-axis controllers: as axes are added, performance markedly degrades as either the servo update time or program execution time increases. The Automation 3200 utilizes a distributed control architecture that enables it to maintain performance independent of the number of axes being controlled. It accomplishes this by avoiding the processing bottleneck caused by today’s common single processor control architecture. Position, velocity, and current loop closure are handled by Aerotech’s Intelligent Network Drive (Ndrive). Trajectory generation is done on the PC using a real-time operating system that runs with higher priority than Windows®. The PC executes programs and sends the position commands to the Ndrive via the IEEE-1394 (FireWire®) high-speed serial bus.

All of the external signals including encoder and I/O are fed directly into the drive, allowing one cable to be used between the PC and the drive. Drives are networked together with a single cable.

In designing the Automation 3200, Aerotech decided that its next generation controller had to overcome the shortcomings of the traditional ±10 V network interface. While still viable for many applications, ±10 V has shortcomings, particularly when complex motion control is involved such as is common in many Aerotech applications. For example, noise coupling onto the analog signals can cause instability in the servo loop that prevents high system bandwidth. Also, with the ±10 V command, the controller doesn't have knowledge of how well the current loops are tracking. With these and other shortcomings, it was decided that the next generation controller had to utilize a high-speed serial interface.

Digital networks, such as Ethernet and RS-232, are widely used in many different industries. Other newer networks such as FireWire® (IEEE-1394) and USB are becoming increasingly popular. For example, nearly all new computers now have these interfaces as standard.

With a variety of digital networks available, Aerotech developed a list of criteria that the Automation 3200 network interface had to possess. The following list details the key criteria we used to ultimately select FireWire® (IEEE-1394), and why those criteria were considered important.

SynqNet™ is a registered trademark of Motion Engineering.
FireWire® is a registered trademark of Apple Computer.