Path planning - Target data generation

  • Truly jerk limited
  • Reprogrammable in 100μs

Triamec servo drives have local path planning for point-to-point applications. Coordinated movements of several servo axes are controlled by a superior unit:

Local Path Planning

Path planning from A to B with reprogramming of the target to C
Path planning from A to B with reprogramming of the target to C

The path planning in the servo drive generates target data in a 10kHz cycle, truly jerk limited and with all usual parameters. "Truly jerk limited" means that a constant, definable jerk value is used and not just a jerk time. The true jerk limitation requires more computing effort, but is easier and more intuitive to use and makes more sense physically.

Thanks to novel algorithms, a path change can be calculated and implemented in just 100μs. This enables sophisticated applications with sensor-controlled processes in the range of milliseconds and micrometers:

  • Event-controlled path planning, sensor-guided paths
  • Touch-Down detection and travel to a relative target
  • Late path correction e.g. in vision guided systems (die bonding)

External path planning / target data

Via Tria-Link or other interfaces, external CNC nominal data, e.g. CNC target data calculated on a central computer, can be transmitted to a servo drive. These are preferably received by the servo drive as P,V,A triplets (position, velocity and acceleration) and are physically correctly interpolated for the internal position control.

The target data must be sent to the servo drive in a fixed cycle. For this purpose, a real-time system such as TwinCAT from Beckhoff is typically used on the host computer.

For pre-calculated paths, such as those used for CNC applications or in optics, the Triamec Motion System eliminates the need for a real-time environment. The Triamec Tria-Link adapter cards feature real-time tables, which relieves the application of real-time requirements, which is an economic advantage and greatly simplifies programming.