Product category:
Stepper and Servo Drives, Motors, Controls
News Release from: Motion Engineering | Subject: ZMP
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 12 April 2005
Card controls up to 32 tightly
co-ordinated axes
A new motion controller card for industrial computers boasts exceptional performance for multi-axis control.
Motion Engineering (MEI) has introduced a new motion controller card for industrial computers it reckons delivers exceptional performance for multi-axis control Extending the capabilities of the XMP series, the new 64bit ZMP supports up to 32 tightly co-ordinated axes over the SynqNet motion control interface
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 17 Dec 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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SynqNet is an all-digital motion control interface designed to replace the noise-prone +/-10V analogue interface for controllers and servo drives.
Offering servo updates of up to 24kHz, the ZMP family is optimised for precision control schemes.
The ZMP controller is based on a 466MHz Motorolla PowerPC processor, the 64bit floating point operation enabling high precision, low latency operation.
This brings two significant benefits for motion engineers.
Firstly, this means that more axes can be controlled without a reduction in control loop bandwidth.
Indeed, it is possible to control 32 SynqNet axes at a servo update of 4kHz using the ZMP.
Secondly, the improved performance of the new controller greatly increases the flexibility of use.
Using Motion Engineering's MechaWare plug-in for Simulink, it is possible to download a control scheme directly from Matlab/Simulink onto the controller firmware.
Custom control algorithms from sophisticated vibration control to advanced model-based and hybrid designs can be immediately downloaded to the controller for immediate use (there is download and run and simulation mode within the Matlab/Simulink environment).
Optimised to work with the MechaWare plug-in, the scope and flexibility of the ZMP controller is greatly increased compared with a traditional semiprogrammable PID/filter based controller.
The MechaWare/ZMP combination also simplifies complex control system design, reducing development time and allows for scaling of algorithm development over multiple platforms.
The ZMP controller can be easily programmed using MEI's MPX ActiveX controls, or the MEI MPI C/C++ libraries for more demanding applications.
As such, code can be ported from the XMP family controllers.
The ZMP is available in both PCI half-board form and PMC card for use in workstations and embedded PCs.
Windows XP, 2000, NT4 and VenturCom operating systems are supported, as well as VxWorks real time Linux. Request a free brochure from Motion Engineering ...
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