Kollmorgen's MechaWare 4.0

MOTION CONTROL: Kollmorgen introduces MechaWare^™ 4.0 — the industry’s only mechatronic “toolkit” that empowers software and  design engineers to work together to design, test and modify custom motion algorithms in a fraction of the time and cost of conventional methods.  This new upgraded MechaWare version leverages MATLAB®/Simulink® from The Mathworks^™ to identically model and seamlessly integrate mechanical systems and control software design, resulting in faster design cycles, superior motion system performance with reduced power consumption, and faster time to market at a fraction of the cost of conventional methods — potentially saving OEMs thousands of dollars and months of development time. With more than 80 MechaWare blocks optimized for motion control, and all of those blocks matched to controller firmware performance to ensure that control model behavior is nothing less than identical to the actual hardware response, MechaWare 4.0 promises significantly faster and more precise designs, increased throughput and reduced settling time to maximize mechanical system efficiency. And whether engineers are looking to implement and test a simple PID algorithm, or build a multi-axis controls model using pre-filters, observers and biquad filters, MechaWare 4.0 is also scalable to meet specific design needs.

The MechaWare 4.0 graphical interface allows controls engineers to reduce development cycles and simplify machine design. They are also able to embed inverse kinematic calculations in firmware for customized, real-time performance, define coordinate transformations to improve system accuracy based on registration mark or vision system input, and create motion and I/O routines in firmware for reduced latency and improved safety.

Specific advantages of MechaWare 4.0 include:

• Eliminate Mechanical Vibration and Reduce Settling Time — reduce or eliminate vibration with optimized algorithms to reduce settling time and improve system throughput
• Reduce Motor Cogging — tools to map and compensate for error due to motor cogging, with increased smoothness for constant velocity applications
• Protect Intellectual Property — direct download to firmware allows user to protect control IP
• Reduce Development Time and Expense — test motion system design and hardware before building costly prototypes with MATLAB/Simulink
• Matched Performance between Simulink Blocks and Firmware — matched blocks in firmware guarantees identical performance between control model and production
• Sample Models for Common Architectures — inverse kinematics, gantry systems, robot configurations
• Embed Axes Relationships — complete flexibility to implement MIMO control, inverse kinematics and axis translations
• Standard Control Blocks — PID/PIV, biquad, observer, matrix gain, lookup tables and more
• Motion and I/O Blocks — Sequence, Trigger, Motion and I/O through model for embedded routines

 -Edited by Kelsey Anderson