Omron Industrial Automation has announced the release of a new machine automation platform: Sysmac (System for Machine Automation Control). Omron says that Sysmac stands for one machine control through one connection and one software and represents a major milestone in the company’s 10-year plan aimed at strengthening and globalising its position in the machine automation market
The guiding principles behind the Sysmac automation platform are: one control for the entire machine or production cell; harmony between machine and people; and open communication and open programming standards.
The result is said to be a powerful and robust automation platform with a new machine automation controller (Sysmac NJ), that integrates motion, sequencing, networking and vision inspection, a new software (Sysmac Studio), that includes configuration, programming, simulation and monitoring and a fast machine network (EtherCAT) to control motion, vision, sensors and actuators.
An immediate benefit of the new architecture is claimed to be the seamless integration of Omron’s core competences within one control platform. Machine control and motion control are now one; field devices are controlled across one machine network and programmed by single software.
“Customers design their machines with one control platform and want to scale up their machines according to the application without affecting machine speed and performance,” states Shinya Yamasaki, senior general manager of Omron Automation Systems Division HQ.
One machine controller
The heart of the new automation platform is the Sysmac NJ 501 machine automation controller, which is designed for high speed and flexibility. It incorporates an Intel processor proven for harsh industrial environments with fan-free operation and runs under a RTOS, a real time operating system. It is scalable with a choice of 16, 32 and 64 axis CPUs. A response time of less than 1ms can be achieved for applications of up to 32 axes. This is far more than can be offered by a conventional hardware based control.
Based on an Intel microcontroller, running under a RTOS, the Sysmac NJ machine automation controller shifts from a rigid ASIC based architecture to a flexible and scalable software centric one. “We have made a bold step into the world of PC automation while retaining the legendary reliability and robustness of an Omron industrial controller,” explains Yamasaki. To achieve such a transformation, Omron worked closely with leading semiconductor manufacturer, Intel. Omron Industrial Automation is a major partner with Intel in the factory automation market in Japan.
One machine software
Created to give machine builders full control over their automation system, Sysmac Studio integrates configuration, programming, simulation and monitoring into one software. Sysmac Studio delivers a true Integrated Development Environment (IDE) to eliminate several separate softwares that make design, development and program validation cumbersome, and uses Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). Hence, it is said to offer a new experience in terms of ease of use and speed of programming.
A graphic-oriented configuration allows quick set-up of the controller, field devices and networks, while machine and motion programming based on IEC 1131-3 standard and PLCopen function blocks for motion control cuts programming time. A smart editor with on-line debugging facilitates quick and error free programming. Advanced simulation of sequence and motion control, data logging and data trace reduce machine tuning and set-up. Sysmac Studio also offers an advanced 3D simulation environment to develop and test off-line motion profiles such as cams and complex kinematics.
One machine network
One connection via the Sysmac NJ series controller allows seamless control and communication with both the machine and the factory. The new NJ series controllers are designed for open communication via EtherCAT, one of the fastest emerging networks on the market for machine automation. EtherCAT is Omron’s de-facto machine network for its wide range of field and motion devices. It is a 100Mbps industrial Ethernet network compliant with IEEE 802.3 frames, capable of handling up to 192 slaves with refresh time down to 100µs and less than 1µs jitter. It achieves high accuracy for multi-axis synchronisation thanks to its distributed slave clock mechanism. It is simple to set-up with automatic address assignment for slaves and cost effective to install as it uses standard shielded Ethernet cables and connectors.
Faithful to Omron’s social and global policy, Sysmac meets global standards such as EC Directives, cULus, Lloyd’s and NK and is designed and manufactured with clean and recyclable material.
The Sysmac machine automation controller has been available since 1st October 2011.
Real life experience of Sysmac
The Sysmac automation platform and related devices will be exhibited at the System Control Fair (SCF) 2011 in Japan and at the SPS/IPC/DRIVES 2011 fair in Germany in November 2011.
