FireWire highly accepted by the industrial automation market

Citation

(2002), "FireWire highly accepted by the industrial automation market", Assembly Automation, Vol. 22 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/aa.2002.03322aab.006

FireWire highly accepted by the industrial automation market

FireWire highly accepted by the industrial automation market

Keywords: Automation, Fieldbus, Networks

The penetration of FireWire in the industrial automation market is now a reality. The independent ARC Advisory Group puts FireWire-based Motion Control Networking on its Top 10 list of automation technologies to watch in 2001. "Commercial use of FireWire for video and high-speed external computer peripherals is expected to continue and to keep costs low for this technology", according to ARC.

ARC thinks that specifications for FireWire are practically the same as for SerCos, except that Firewire is much faster and is driven by consumer standards and the consumer market. "FireWire networking technology has ignited the motion control market in virtually every machine control application domain today. Robotic, CNC, work cells, and packaging machine applications are utilizing FireWire in order to leverage the benefits of a high volume and low cost networking technology."

Servo drives

Multi axis motion control applications in which the final position and angular velocity control is distributed to multiple servo drives are excellent candidates for FireWire to maintain a high degree of synchronization using low cost, PC-based motion controllers. ARC senior Analyst Sal Spada says: "FireWire is the right choice for a PC-based motion control solution as it solves the motion control synchronization problem right out of the box while keeping the cost of networking low."

"Currently. the market is being flooded", Spada says, "with FireWire solutions from a diverse set of suppliers creating a standard messaging protocol. By developing a FireWire plug-in card for servo drives, Nyquist has the possibility of creating a defacto messaging standard for FireWire drives."

Greater range

Spada: "Therefore Nyquist is an example of the trend among PC-based machine control solutions continuing to expand the number of partners for servo drives and motors. OEM's simply want a choice of servo suppliers because not all suppliers are capable of providing the entire range of motor drive offerings. The partnerships Nyquist has developed with Control Techniques and Kollmorgen-Seidel are moving toward offering a much greater range of choices for machine builders that seek all-digital interfaces and commercial computing platforms."

For more information about Nyquist or FireWire: Dorine Vaessen, PR Officer. Nyquist Industrial Control, Postbus 7170, 5605 JD Eindhoven, Netherlands. Tel.: +31 (0)40 2578888; Fax: +31 (0)40 2578800; E-mail: contact-us@nyquist.com ; Web site: www.nyquist.com