New profile issued for PLCopen

The CANopen SIG (Special Interest Group) “Drives and Motion Control” of the CAN in Automation (CiA) international users’ and manufacturers’ group has released the CiA 542 profile for PLCopen Motion compliant devices. The profile describes the CANopen interface for drives controlled by PLCs, which supports the PLCopen Motion function blocks. The function blocks may be executed on the programmable drive of the PLC. In addition, the profile specifies the CANopen interface for master/slave axis control according to PLCopen.

Some operation modes and configuration parameters as specified in the internationally standardized CiA 402 motion control profile (IEC 61800-7-201/-301) are just referenced in CiA 452. The operation modes for gear, jog, and camming are specified additionally. All necessary parameters as well as Process Data Objects (PDOs) are described in the new profile. “The profile specifies just one RPDO and one TPDO,” explained Olga Fischer from CiA. “Therefore the finite state automaton is as simple as possible.”