New S7 MOTOMAN Sync Library greatly improves robot control

Photo by yaskawa

At the SPS IPC Drives 2013 trade fair, YASKAWA débuted a system solution based on a combination of devices and software from their Robotics, Drives & Motion and VIPA divisions. The result is a technically unique system from a single source. At the same time, YASKAWA has added a library for S7 environments to the MOTOMAN Sync interface. This makes it easy to integrate a robot into new or existing systems.

The S7 MOTOMAN Sync Library has greatly simplified programming. This makes implementation of the robot in the overall system as easy as with standards servo systems such as SIMOTION in the Siemens S7 environment or Kinetix in the Allen-Bradley CLX environment. The robot controlled using MOTOMAN Sync does not require a teach box, a manual programming device for robots.

Demo booth at SPS IPC Drives

A demo booth at last year’s SPS IPC Drives trade fair will clearly demonstrate MOTOMAN Sync’s capabilities: The interface connects a MOTOMAN MH5F handling robot to a VIPA controller. The robot can be programmed directly from the VIPA controller and can be controlled using the SPS control panel (HMI). At the same time, this sample system illustrates YASKAWA’s approach of using technically uniform total system solutions. The MOTOMAN robot, the VIPA SPS, as well as the inverter drive and the servo technology are all from YASKAWA.

The tried and tested MOTOMAN Sync interface connects the FS100 robot controller to an SPS via Ethernet/IP or Profinet, which allows the data to be transferred as with a standard incoming and outgoing communication. This also means the robot tasks are saved more directly in the PC or SPS. The movement commands are sent to the robot from the PC or SPS in real time. The protocol, which was developed by YASKAWA in Japan, supports various SPS brands.

The new S7 MOTOMAN Sync Library includes all of the required commands to integrate a MOTOMAN robot from YASKAWA into an S7 environment. These commands are programmed as multi-instance-capable function blocks (FB). They can be freely renamed based on your project requirements. This makes controlling MOTOMAN industrial robots directly over an S7 SPS even easier, because, using the S7 MOTOMAN Sync Library, programming and diagnostics can be performed completely via the SPS.

For more information, please visit http://www.motoman.eu.

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