As Ethernet continues to spread throughout manufacturing plants, connecting high-speed motion devices as well as automation systems to the corporate network, more how-to information is becoming available to help engineers make the transition from dedicated fieldbus networks to Ethernet connectivity.
Rockwell Automation and Cisco have collaborated on the newest edition to hit industrial Ethernet implementation bookshelves – a 75-page addition to Rockwell Automation’s “Converged Plant-wide Ethernet Design and Implementation Guide.” This new chapter provides detailed design guidance, recommendations and best practices to help control system engineers securely synchronize motion applications within a plant-wide Ethernet/IP architecture.
Focused on the management of time-synchronization services and timely delivery of data between devices, this guidebook addition is targeted at applications requiring highly integrated motion control, such as packaging, pick-and-place, converting, assembly and robotics.
Rockwell and Cisco maintain that Ethernet/IP is capable of handling the determinism required by high-speed motion control through the network’s use of IEEE-1588 Precision Time Protocol for closed-loop drive operation, which addresses position, speed and torque regulation within a drive. According to Rockwell Automation, EtherNet/IP addresses the required determinism by ensuring that the clocks in end devices are tightly synchronized and information in the message is time-stamped with an accuracy of 100 nanoseconds. Hundreds of axes can be coordinated for synchronized motion control, reports Rockwell Automation.
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