ADLINK Technology Inc, the leading supplier of open platform PC-based measurement and automation equipment, has announced not only an affordable, high-performance 4-axis Stepper & Servo Motion Control Card, but an easy integration of motion control and vision in the same computer. This new PCI-8164 is a 4-axis motion control PCI bus card with position-compare trigger outputs that directly link with vision system controllers. Completing this integration, an onboard look-up-table compares the actual position with a preprogrammed coordinator in real time, so that the trigger point of the 2D or line-scanning image acquisition is extremely precise.
The PCI-8164 is designed for the most demanding, harsh industrial environments and provides high pulse (up to 6.55 MHz), high performance, and accurate motion control for precise control. Applications include especially automatic inspection systems, meticulousness placement of x-y tables as in pick and place equipment, electronic and semiconductor test equipment, and optical alignment systems in contract manufacturing of board level products; also extremely adequate for robotics, conveyers, material handlers, textile machinery, and palletizers.
This PCI-based plug-in motion control card eliminates the need for the two computers that are typically required for motion and vision control. With simple sync capability to vision cards, the PCI-8164 provides widely utilized pulse command output interface and trajectory planning for both Stepping and AC/DC Servo motors regardless of AC/DC, with pulse rates up to 6.55 Mbps, ensuring high positioning accuracy. It easily links to motor drives and limit sensors, and its onboard motion control ASIC performs most of the motion control tasks leaving the software to be used specifically for monitoring. Because of this feature, this motion control card can be used in a Windows-based system in real time and can operate up to 48 motors. Both the acceleration and deceleration times are programmable, and the S-curve and Trapezoidal Velocity profiles allow for smoother motion during starting and stopping.
With vision and motion in one computer, the PCI-8164 operates a variety of velocity profiles and does so with better and faster control because of hardware linear interpolation between four axes, a powerful tool that reduces software computation efforts. Additionally, various operation modes including constant speed, continuous motion, absolute move, relative move, manual pulsing, simultaneous move, speed change on the fly, linear interpolation, and 13 home return modes are built in for simple system integration.
As an additional advantage for designers, ADLINK offers ease-of-use development tools for quick system configuration and setup. Standard with the PCI-8164 is a full set of Windows DLLs for NT/98/95, C function libraries for DOS, and over 20 sample programs. In addition, a Microsoft Windows-based, graphical user interface utility software -- Motion Creator™ -- is included, providing a user-friendly utility to setup, configure, and test all functions of the motion controller. ISaGRAF compatibility for NT is also guaranteed to meet various integration demands.