KYOTO, Japan--(BUSINESS WIRE)--OMRON Corporation (TOKYO:6645)(ADR:OMRNY) today announced the development of its new NX series I/O safety system. The products below will be exhibited at SPS/IPC/DRIVES 2012 to be held in Germany from November 27 to 29 and SEMICON Japan 2012 to be held from December 5 to 7*2.
- NX series I/O units (Scheduled for release in spring 2013)
- NX series safety controllers (Scheduled for release in spring 2013)
The products are all fully compatible with the Sysmac automation platform*1 launched in July 2011. This new style of EtherCAT-compatible modular I/O system enables sequence, motion, and safety control to be integrated into machine control systems.
The new NX series I/O system enables simple and flexible design for high-speed, high-precision motion control and safety control in an integrated engineering environment when used in conjunction with the NJ series machine automation controller and the automation software Sysmac Studio. This contributes to productivity improvements and assurance of safety conforming to international standards.
Machine designers are now required to design globally competitive
production machinery for global manufacturing sites with systems
appropriate for flexible production methods and quantities, and short
lead times.
Under such circumstances, the designers must design
sequence, motion, and safety control at the same time while increasing
their knowledge of machine design in order to conform to international
safety standards, and this results in a heavy workload. Moreover,
functionality and flexibility are required even in the safety control
domain, and a system to ensure safety while maintaining productivity is
expected. Omron's new NX series I/O system was designed to meet these
needs.
The NX series I/O system was developed based on the Sysmac concept:
1.
"One Connection" enables the NJ series machine automation controller to
be connected with safety control units and standard I/O units in one
single EtherCAT system. This contributes to simpler system construction
and greater work efficiency.
2. "One Software" enables integrated
programming for control systems including sequence, motion, and safety
control with the Sysmac Studio automation engineering environment. This
standardizes design assets and increases reusability, thereby
significantly improving machine control design efficiency.
*1. Sysmac automation platform
Complete machine control through one
software suite and one seamless connection with a variety of I/O
devices. Machine and motion programming is fully compliant with IEC
61131-3, and the dedicated software suite features functions such as
programming, motion designing, and network setting allowing easy control
of all connected devices and freeing users to engage in further
production innovation.
*2. The NX series will be exhibited in the
EtherCAT Technology Group's booth.
Features
1. Safety control now integrated into the Sysmac
"One Connection" concept
A single EtherCAT slave that adopts easily expandable modular design allows easy connection with all devices: standard I/O devices and high-speed I/O devices for sequence control as well as safety controllers and safety I/O devices for safety control. This simplifies flexible system design to meet optional user specifications, and simple wiring improves work efficiency.
2. Engineering safety also integrated into the Sysmac "One Software" concept
Previously, safety control was designed separately from sequence and
motion control through the design cycles including design, verification,
debugging, test operation, startup, improvement, and addition of
functions. Now the automation software Sysmac Studio enables the same
operability and GUI*3 as those of machine control design to
be used for safety control design to build a system, which simplifies
the design process.
Modular structure can be built up for each
program when designing safety control. The modularized safety programs
can be reused for other designs, and the amount of device verification
work required for validation can be reduced.
*3. GUI: Graphical
User Interface. User interface that enables intuitive operation with
graphics and pointing devices such as a mouse.
3. IEC 61131-3 programming language for safety controller
IEC 61131-3 programming language (function block diagrams), which is recommended by PLCopen, is adopted for the safety controller and provides a design environment that can be used as standard all over the world. This drastically reduces the time required for designers to master design procedures and programming rules, and simplifies the sharing of programs globally.
4. Space-saving modular unit
The NX series adopts a modular structure. The width of the standard I/O
unit is 12 mm or 24 mm (safety CPU unit: 30 mm, safety I/O unit: 12 mm).
The required width of the new unit is reduced by approximately 70%
compared to Omron's previous remote I/Os*4 for EtherCAT with
terminal blocks, which can reduce the size of the system and the control
panel. The detachable screwless clamp terminal block contributes to
reduced wiring work.
*4. Omron's GX series DI/DO: 16 points, AI: 4
points
5. Ultra-high-speed, high-precision control through synchronous I/O refreshing
In the previous remote I/O system, I/O refreshing*5 in the
CPU of the NJ series machine controller and the master and slave
communications units for remote I/O control was performed at different
times, so high-speed and high-precision control in fixed time cycles was
difficult due to the time difference of I/O refreshing. The distributed
clock that synchronizes time among devices connected via EtherCAT
ensures complete synchronization of I/O refresh cycles between the CPU
of the NJ series machine controller and the NX series I/O units, which
facilitates the high-speed and high-precision control required for
motion applications.
*5. I/O refreshing: Packages of external data
from sensors/switches that are directly connected to the PLC or the
basic I/O unit are exchanged with data in the PLC internal I/O Memory.
About OMRON
Headquartered in Kyoto, Japan, OMRON Corporation
is a global leader in the field of automation. Established in 1933,
Omron has more than 37,000 employees in over 35 countries working to
provide products and services to customers in a variety of fields
including industrial automation, electronic components, social systems,
healthcare, and the environment. The company has regional head offices
in Singapore (Asia Pacific), Beijing (Greater China), Amsterdam (Europe,
Africa, and the Middle East), Chicago (the Americas), Gurgaon (India),
and Sao Paulo (Brazil).
For more information, visit OMRON's website
at http://www.omron.com/
Sysmac® is a registered trademark of Omron Corporation.
EtherCAT®
is a registered trademark and patented technology, licensed by Beckhoff
Automation GmbH, Germany.
Other company names and product names in
this document are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their
respective companies.
PLCopen is an organization that promotes IEC
61131-3, the global standard for PLC programming and recommends reducing
costs for education, operation, maintenance, and engineering by
standardization of programming.