Donation aids fieldbus education
A
SICK (UK) product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Apr 11, 2006
Manchester Metropolitan University, its students and industry in general will soon reap the benefits of equipment donated by Sick (UK).
Manchester Metropolitan University, its students and industry in general will soon reap the benefits of equipment donated by Sick (UK).
The hardware, to be installed in test rigs at the university's Automation Systems Centre (ASCent), will be used to train both internal and external students and industry professionals on fieldbus technologies - specifically Profibus.
ASCent was set up by the university to support industry in the control and automation arena, specialises in Profibus, AS-i and IEC61131-3 - the open PLC programming language.
As well as being the Profibus International Competence Centre for the UK, ASCent also supports the AS-i Expert Alliance and uses these links to offer non-vendor-specific support, consultancy and training.
Sick donated four products from its extensive range, all of which interface with Profibus.
They will see action on a demonstration rig which uses motors driving two vertically mounted lead screws to control the position of a cross bar, mounted between them on lead screw carriages - the end result being to manipulate the position of a football that sits on the crossbar.
A Sick S3000 laser scanner monitors the surrounds of the rig to ensure that no one gets too close while the rig is in operation, this is connected to Profibus using a Profi-safe node.
A Sick DME3000 laser measuring system is used to measure the position of the ball on the crossbar and an ATM60 multiturn absolute encoder is used to feedback the motor position to the controlling PLC.
According to Andy Verwer, ASCent Manager and Principal Lecturer in Automation and Control: "As well being used at the university, this training rig will also see action at the Profibus International Conference at Coombe Abbey, on 27th and 28th June, an event which has run for the last two years".
"We will also be taking it to this year's Drives and Controls Show at Telford in May".
"We have always found the equipment we have used from Sick to be very reliable and straightforward, doing exactly what we need it to do and, just as importantly, the documentation that accompanies it is readable and very easy to use", he concludes.
ASCent runs a similar certified training courses based around the AS-i protocol.
Industrial Ethernet and functional safety training will soon be up and running.
When these get the green light they know where they will be turning for reliable, accurate and industry-proven hardware.
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