In a live demonstration at the SPS/IPC/Drives show, Ethernet Powerlink and openSAFETY were shown to be capable of supplying the 24V power supply, 750V DC bus, and control data to a drive via a slip ring.
Machine modularisation calls for a decentralised architectures, so control and drive components often need to be installed on moving machine parts, and sometimes on rotating parts. Power and data for these components is normally provided via slip rings.
At the Nuremberg SPS/IPC/DRIVES show, the Ethernet Powerlink Standardisation Group (EPSG) exhibited an assembly with B&R ACOPOSmulti65 drives on a rotating machine part. Using a Cobham slip ring, the 24V power supply, 750V DC bus, and control data was supplied using Powerlink and openSAFETY.
Claiimed to be a first in industrial applications, data at a rate of 100Mbit/s and the DC bus voltage were simultaneously transferred via the slip ring. Martial Favrat, Head of Engineering and Product Quality Manager at Cobham, states: "Our engineers were impressed with the stability and EMC compliance of the Powerlink protocol. We performed comprehensive tests so we can guarantee the transmission quality of our slip rings." Powerlink uses individual frames, so data transfer reliability is naturally higher than that of protocols using summation frames.
Ethernet Powerlink Standardization Group (EPSG)
Powerlink-Office
Kurfürstenstr. 112
10787 Berlin
GERMANY
+49 30 8508 8529
