At SPS IPC Drives in Nuremberg, Germany on Nov. 26-28, 2013, Texas Instruments (TI) will showcase new technology innovations for the industrial market on its booth in Hall 6, stand # 136. Several hands-on analog and embedded processing demonstrations will highlight key technology advancements in industrial automation, including motor control, industrial drives, programmable logic control (PLC), industrial communication and sensors. Further details can be found on TI’s industrial automation portfolio web page.
Main highlights of the TI booth:
- Industrial Drives: Drives are key components in almost every industrial system. TI will feature a highly integrated drive supporting advanced motor control including position feedback and various fieldbus communication options on a single chip – the upcoming Sitara™ AM4x processors. A second industrial drive demonstration showcases a complete drive system with the building blocks of motor control, power stage, position feedback, fieldbus communication and functional safety in a modular architecture. This demonstration includes the new next-generation C2000™ Delfino™ 32-bit microcontroller (MCU) – dual-core C28x-based architecture.
- Motor Control: TI’s rich ecosystem of analog and embedded processing components, software, tools and support help developers design robust and cost efficient motor control solutions quickly. At SPS 2013, TI will illustrate the breadth of its capabilities with examples ranging from super small DC drivers and high-precision stepper motor controllers to a new software suite for servo position control capability with InstaSPIN™-MOTION technology.
- Programmable Logic Control: Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) implementations are always ready to make use of more computing performance at lower power consumption and less space. In this demo, TI shows the collaboration with 3S using the PLC software CoDeSys 3.5 on the upcoming Sitara AM5x processors, integrating two ARM Cortex-A15 cores, each operating at up to 1.5 GHz. The CoDeSys runtime is operating as an application on top of a Linux 3.8.13 real-time kernel and outputs visualization on a screen via HDMI. The PLC application contains a two-axis motor control system that is using CoDeSys Softmotion module and an embedded EtherCAT master to drive two off-the-shelf EtherCAT servo motors.
PLC I/O modules are building blocks of industrial control systems. Process-critical signals of up to hundreds of factory nodes come and go through these I/O modules. This translates into requirements that these I/O modules be robust, highly-accurate, meet stringent industry standards such as IEC61000, be low power and cost effective. This presents a tremendous challenge to designers in selecting and testing the right components to do the job. As a second PLC demo, TI will preview a new PLC I/O reference design and evaluation platform featuring precision data converters with integrated signal conditioning for the industrial market. Additionally, complete isolated and non-isolated power solutions, digital isolation, interface and protection round out these PLC I/O reference designs. Evaluation platforms implementing MSP430™ MCUs or Tiva™ C Series MCUs - complete with a comprehensive performance evaluation GUI helps accelerate this evaluation process and decrease time to market.
- Industrial Communication: This demo showcases a typical industrial communication scenario. A standard Siemens S7-1500 PLC functions as PROFINET I/O controller. The PLC connects to and controls three PROFINET I/O devices, one standard Siemens ET200S and two TI industrial communications engine (ICE) boards. The ICE boards are based on the Sitara AM3359 processor, which implement a fully integrated two-port PROFINET device solution.
- Industry 4.0: TI will showcase an Industry 4.0 solution using wireless connected sensors and analog and embedded processing technologies. One of the wireless sensors uses NFC technology leveraging TI's latest NFC contactless transceiver and dynamic transponder interface product solutions. TI’s Bluetooth low energy SensorTag kit based on SimpleLink™ CC2541 wireless MCU adds a range of additional wireless connected sensors. Additionally, a connected gateway using the SimpleLink CC3000 Wi-Fi module enables remote access for sensor maintenance, configuration through a remote web interface and data storage to the cloud.
- Sensor solutions: Designing with sensors presents various challenges as each sensor is different and requires a specific signal chain. TI’s portfolio provides solutions to speed the design cycle with the right signal acquisition solutions. At SPS, TI will present a sensor transmitter, including a sensor front end that makes the bridge between the sensor and the microcontroller, and features a 4-20mA current loop driver. In addition, TI will showcase the industry’s first inductance-to-digital converter, the LDC1000, with a precision position measurement demo.
Learn more about TI’s at SPS IPC Drives and the company’s industrial automation portfolio: