Tell us a bit about your company and why you are attending SENSOR+TEST 2018.
Hello my name is Dr. Felix Steinebach and I am part of the CEO team of TWK-ELEKTRONIK GmbH. TWK is a family-run company which was founded in 1962. Together with my brother Dr. Hannwelm Steinebach and my father Johannes Steinebach we are three persons that form the management.
TWK provides sensor solutions to measure positions like rotation, displacement, inclination and vibration. Therefore TWK acts as an important part for the automation of machine processing.
Here at the sensor+test TWK is kind of an exotic exhibitor, because we offer sensor systems that are directly suitable for industrial machines. That means we do not offer the single sensor chip alone, we integrate the sensor chip into an aluminium or stainless-steel housing suitable rough environments, integrate the sensor chip into periphery electronics to meet the industrial EMC standards, provide the data acquisition software and provide the needed machine communication language like analog, incremental, ssi as well as the complex field-bus communication profiles like, CANopen, Profibus, Profinet, EtherCAT, EthernetIP. However we recognized in the last years, that a lot of engineers of big automation companies visit the sensor+test to get to know the latest sensor chip developments. These engineers use the opportunity to visit our booth to also find a suitable sensor solution for their machines. Our benefit is the so called by-catch which is very profitable for us.
Are there any products in particular that you are highlighting this year?
Since the last decades, TWK noticed a rising trend towards functional safety for machinery according to IEC 61508 and ISO 13849. This trend is accompanied by a rising demand in safety certified sensors. The main idea of these sensors is, that they are allowed to have errors, but every dangerous error has to be communicated to the sps, so that no wrong position signal is transmitted. Additionally the safe position is transmitted via a safe transmission protocol, so that the sps can be sure that no transmission error will occure. The integration of one safe sensor instead of the common solution using two redundant standard sensors is safer and also cheaper – which is the main reason for the rising trend towards safety certified sensors. TWK has developed to a functional safety sensor specialist within the last decades. Today are happy present our huge portfolio of safe sensors like the rotary encoder with Profisafe/Profinet interface (TRT/S3), the rotary encoder with CANopen safety interface (NOCN/S3), the rotary encoder with Fail safe over EtherCAT (FSOE) interface (TRK/S3), the inclination sensor with CANopen safety interface (NBN/S3), the inclination sensor with Profisafe/Profinet interface (NBT/S3), the vibration sensor with CANopen safety and safety CAMs (NVA/S3) and the vibration sensor with Profisafe/Profinet interface (NVT/S3). More safe senors will be launched soon.
Which industries do these products normally serve?
The customers of TWK are located in the automation industry. Usually they develop and produce machines which are moving, turning and rotating. It is always efficient to automate and digitalize those movements. For the automation of these processes a position sensor is indispensable. In particular our customers are the mobile machines, construction machines, wind energy turbines, stationary machines, marine applications airborne applications and many more.