One Controller Handles Motion and Robotics

Robots and packaging machines already work together closely — except for their controllers. “OEMs have essentially had to deal with two completely different control systems in the past, one for the machine and another for the robotics,” says Mike Wagner, global business manager for

Yet, robot and packaging machines may increasingly find themselves sharing a controller. More and more motion control suppliers have started to offer robot kinematics as part of their general motion control platforms, potentially eliminating the need for stand-alone robot controllers and the associated integration headaches.

According to Wagner, the notion of integrated kinematics has always been an attractive one for machine builders and their customers. “Limitations on processing power and intellectual property in the robotics industry kept the controls separate,” he says. Now, though, more powerful processors and the expiration of patents related to Delta-style kinematics has made integrated robot kinematics a likely outcome for many packaging applications. Several examples were on display at the recent Pack Expo show in Las Vegas, including ones from B&R Industrial Automation and Bosch Rexroth.

Rockwell, meanwhile, showed a more tightly integrated robot control than it has had in years past. As Wagner explains, the company has long been able to offer software that would add some robot control functionality on its ControlLogix platform. Now, though, Rockwell has added native kinematics support to ControlLogix, meaning the kinematics reside in the controller’s firmware rather than running as function blocks.

“It’s an important difference,” Wagner says, explaining the native kinematics takes away about 70 percent of the robot-related overhead that would otherwise burden the processor, especially in very fast or multi-robot applications.

Currently, Rockwell’s native kinematics support extends to Cartesian, SCARA and Delta-style robots. Wagner says the system can handle basic moves for a 6-axis articulated arm robot, though full support for this more complex type of robot is not available yet.

B&R and Rockwell are certainly not alone in the push toward integrated robot control. At the previous Pack Expo, Bosch Rexroth demonstrated its take on the technology. Read about it at http://rbi.ims.ca/5411-564 .