Integrated software gives cost-efficient controls

Integrated control and monitoring CIMPLICITY Machine Edition software provides cost-efficient control solution for Swedish sawing machine manufacturer.

Present automation systems, including the required software, are made of many different components.

Along with the hardware used, the software has increasingly gained in importance in recent years.

Both manufacturers and users take into account to what extent new software technologies are able to contribute to cost reduction.

Systems integrators and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) therefore particularly look for integrated software packages rather than isolated application solutions.

Apart from traditional control applications, they also expect visualisation functions to be implemented using the same tools.

In addition, tasks such as drive control, communication between different stations, and the automatic supply of machine and process data for Internet access need to be carried out at the same time.

Using latest software technologies such as COM/DCOM, Active-X, and OPC, GE Fanuc has developed an innovative software solution meeting the requirements described above.

CIMPLICITY Machine Edition, the object oriented control solution, is a framing program which provides an environment offering a seamless integration of PC-based industrial control, man-machine interface (HMI), and system management software.

Open software products running in the CIMPLICITY Machine Edition environment include among others the soft-PLC fxControlT, the monitoring component fxViewT, and the optional system manager fxManagerT.

Randek Maskin, based in Falkenberg in Sweden, is a major manufacturer of cutting machines for the building industry.

It has recently adopted a soft-PLC approach for the control of its cross-cutting saws.

Randek manufactures and sells the saws throughout the world.

It was important to design the control system so that it can be networked with other manufacturing systems for the interchange of files.

Control hardware costs were kept to a minimum.

The system also demanded many rapid calculations to be made while the sawing of materials is in progress.

The cross cutting saws have four axes, one each for the angle, the inclination, the length and the centre line of the saw blade.

These four axes are controlled by directly started asynchronous motors which are positioned by a pulse encoder.

The calibration of the axes is carried out initially by hand movement to the two furthest extents.

Thus the pulse encoder can accurately interpolate positions between the limits of movement on each axis.

The length axis, for example, has a span of 5m with one million pulses corresponding to different positions along this axis.

After calibration, the braking distances have to be checked since the motors are directly started and stopped.

Thus, if the required angular positioning is 127deg and the braking distance is 0.degø, then the motor needs to be turned off at 126.3deg when in forward motion.

It is often difficult to write and support calculations in ladder format on a PC-based system.

Randek turned to GE Fanuc for help and chose CIMPLICITY Machine Edition for the soft-PLC control.

CIMPLICITY Machine Edition, the object oriented control solution, is a framing program which provides an environment offering a seamless integration of PC-based industrial control, man-machine interface (HMI), and system management software.

Open software products running in the CIMPLICITY Machine Edition environment include among others the soft-PLC fxControlT, the monitoring component fxViewT, and the optional system manager, fxManagerT.

fxControl is a complete open architecture PC-based control solution working in a CIMPLICITY Machine Edition environment.

Running under Windows NT, it guarantees soft real-time behaviour.

It uses variables from the integrated database and may be programmed with the IEC61131-3 languages, Ladder Diagram (LD) and Sequential Function Chart (SFC).

Powerful diagnostics tools are available during start-up and operation.

Modifications of the application software may be carried out online, i.e without the need to stop a machine or the entire system.

Randek writes the calculations in structured text, which can then be translated and edited in the customer's native language, while programming the machine control in a ladder format.

The structured text means that the calculations are easier to follow.

In fact the machine control was programmed via a flowchart making it easier to understand and easier to detect faults.

Ladder functions are called in at certain steps as necessary.

fxView is an intuitive 'drag and drop' interface allowing developers to create HMIs rapidly.

Scaleable to machines or systems of any size, it provides a powerful variety of tools for charts, alarms, trends, statistics, and scripts.

With its animated graphics, operators can easily monitor and control processes.

To ensure the robustness of the system with a PC, Randek made a series of decisions: a panel-mounted industrial PC was chosen with a touchscreen.

No keyboard, mouse, CD or floppy drive were added.

This ensured that a proven system was installed, and one that a user could not interfere with by introducing their own programs; the inclusion of a high speed counter card enables a scan-time of 10ms with around 100 I/O and the adoption of CIMPLICITY Machine Edition also has the advantage that should the Windows NT system crash, CIMPLICITY Machine Edition will manage it so that the application is not affected.

The main benefits that have accrued from using CIMPLICITY Machine Edition are: the machine control and the HMI are all based in one program which avoids any delay which would occur if two separate systems had to interchange information; addressing problems are minimal.

Addresses can have meaningful names and CIMPLICITY Machine Edition removes any possibility of conflicts and the programs can be system tested on the PC without connection to the PLC on the new machine.

Thus each program can be evaluated using dummy data when the machine itself is still being built.

The program can then also be evaluated by the customer before delivery of the complete system.

It has finally been possible to develop a single tool and a single interface that is easy to learn and easy to use.

Using the new object-oriented technology, engineers are now able to design more efficient control solutions in less time.

In addition, the simplified operation and maintenance of a system or a machine reduces operating cost and downtimes.

And, as the experience at Randek has shown, GE Fanuc's CIMPLICITY Machine Edition software indeed allows users to develop cost-effective and highly efficient application solutions.

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