Aerotech is
pleased to announce the launch of its groundbreaking, next generation
motion, vision, and I/O system, the Automation 3200. The system
features the world's first high-performance, software-only controller
(NMotion SMC) that offers 32 axes of synchronized motion control.
The NMotion SMC retains the best features of our previous controllers
and combines them with an advanced, high-performance control architecture
to produce a truly state-of-the-art motion, vision, and I/O system.
Industry-Leading
32 Axes of Synchronized Control
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 control. Work done on the Automation
3200 platform will be portable to future releases so users can
look forward to future advancements without having to worry about
abandoning legacy programs.
No Degradation
of Performance as Axis Count Increases
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.
Aerotech's Intelligent Network Drive (NDrive) handles position
and current-loop closure. Trajectory generation is done on the
PC using the Windows® operating system. The PC executes programs
and sends the incremental position commands to the NDrive via
the high-speed serial bus IEEE-1394 (FireWire®).
Greatly
Simplified System Wiring
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. This greatly reduces system wiring and complexity.
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