New EU machinery regulation.

Manufacturers and operators should prepare early for the implementation of the machinery regulation shifting safety responsibilities to machine operatives.

The implementation of the new Machinery Regulation (EU) 2023/1230, effective from 20 January 2027, marks one of the most significant changes to European machinery safety legislation in recent years. While manufacturers remain responsible for compliance when machinery is first placed on the market, the regulation introduces expanded responsibilities for operators throughout the machine's operational lifecycle.

The updated regulation introduces new requirements covering cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and substantial machine modifications. Under the new rules, operators making significant changes to existing machinery may themselves be considered manufacturers, requiring them to perform risk assessments, maintain technical documentation, and complete conformity assessments before placing modified equipment back into service.

Growing need for early preparation.
Although the regulation will soon become mandatory, many organisations continue to face uncertainty due to the absence of official implementation guidance. This leaves manufacturers, machine builders, and plant operators making important compliance decisions without detailed interpretation from regulators.

Markus Erdorf

"As companies prepare for the transition, understanding how the new regulation applies to existing machinery is becoming increasingly important," said Markus Erdorf, Senior Safety Consultant at Leuze.

"Organisations should begin reviewing their machinery, documentation, cybersecurity strategies, and modification procedures now rather than waiting for the implementation deadline."

Cybersecurity becomes part of machine safety.
One of the most notable developments within the new Machinery Regulation is the integration of cybersecurity into machinery safety requirements. Organisations will need to protect machinery against unauthorised access, data manipulation, and other cyber risks while demonstrating compliance through appropriate documentation and risk assessments.

For many operators, this represents a significant shift from traditional machine safety practices and requires closer collaboration between safety engineers, automation specialists, and IT security teams.

Practical steps for machine operators.
To reduce future compliance risks, Leuze recommends that operators:

• Review the new Machinery Regulation requirements early.
• Work closely with machinery manufacturers and system integrators.
• Document all safety-related modifications and inspections.
• Evaluate whether planned machine changes qualify as substantial modifications.
• Monitor evolving standards related to machinery safety, cybersecurity, and AI.

Supporting safe machinery throughout its lifecycle.
As machinery safety requirements continue to evolve, Leuze supports manufacturers and operators with machine safety consulting, risk assessments, training, and engineering services designed to help organisations achieve regulatory compliance while maintaining operational efficiency.

"The responsibility for machine safety no longer ends when equipment is commissioned," added Erdorf. "Preparing today will help manufacturers and operators reduce compliance risks and ensure safe machine operation throughout the entire lifecycle."

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@EU_Commission @LeuzeUK @LeuzeUSA @mepaxIntPR #PAuto

Automated AI model creation and machine learning.

Significantly reduces the cost, engineering effort, and time-to-market for AI-powered products delivering high-quality models in days versus weeks

Prism AIMMGen™, Teledyne FLIR's latest addition to their Prism™ software family. This is an ITAR-free AI model generation service that enables the automated creation of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) models using synthetically generated data. It offers significant cost and schedule savings for system integrators developing AI/ML products for commercial, first response applications etc.

The manual labeling process for AI/ML products is highly intensive, and this is further exacerbated when it includes rare and arbitrary objects such as military target classes for which data collection in real-world scenarios is both costly and difficult to near impossible. Prism AIMMGen overcomes these hurdles with a synthetic data generation toolchain capable of generating millions of ML-ready examples of arbitrary objects in various environments and weather, all in both visible light and infrared spectrums. Generating annotated synthetic imagery in minutes that can be used to fine-tune AI models significantly reduces engineering efforts and development timelines.

“With the pace and sophistication in which systems are developing, it is critical to leverage smart, synthetic data to train AI models so they are best-in-class,” said Dan Walker, vice president, Teledyne FLIR. “AIMMGen speeds developers' time to market while ensuring that their respective AI products are ready for whatever scenario they might encounter in practically any environmental condition.”

The automated AI optimization system produces high-quality models without costly data collection. Its in-house ML operations (MLOps) infrastructure ensures data safety and leverages an extensive synthetic data lake and decades of expertise. Cost-effective development enables the release of a new model in response to new task requirements, target classes, or fine-tuning within days, future-proofing the model as the mission evolves.

Key Prism AIMMGen features:
● Unlimited synthetic images – Access to a large ITAR-free data lake for multiple object detection use cases.
● Application-specific AI training datasets – Ability to produce millions of automatically labeled synthetic image sets to meet specific application requirements ensuring efficient, focused learning, including an interactive search tool.
● Automated on-premise model training, validation, and optimization – Short-lead generation of a high-performing AI/ML solution at a fraction of the traditional engineering effort on private MLOps cloud infrastructure to achieve secure data and model handling.

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@flir @mepaxIntPR #AI #Environment

Enhanced environmental protection for push-buttons.

Details of the latest additions to EAO's rugged Series 82 family of push-button HMIs have been released. The series now includes device featuring vibration-resistant cable connections and rear sealing.

The new cabled versions of EAO’s popular Series 82 pushbutton switches are available with a choice of a 200 mm straight or 90° offset cable. They provide significant advantages in terms of mounting flexibility as they can be optimised for a wide variety of application and mounting scenarios simply by selecting the appropriate connector.

Variants with the 90°- offset cable exit point are particularly useful in machinery with low-depth back panels. The cable version with M12 connector is impressively robust and easy to mount and targets demanding machinery applications. The cable version with tin-plated cable though offers R118 certification, making it ideal for HMI applications in heavy-duty and special-purpose vehicles. All the new devices feature rear over-moulding and IP67 protection as standard while SUS 316L stainless steel casing and enhanced vibration-resistance are available options.

Typical applications  § Food and beverage industry § Machinery and production facilities § Heavy-duty and special-vehicles § Passenger transportation systems and busses § Access control and security systems § Ticketing and vending machines

According to Robert Davies, Marketing Manager with EAO Ltd, pushbutton switches and indicators are often exposed to extremely harsh operating conditions: “In the food and beverage industry for example harsh alkaline cleaning agents often cause corrosion problems”, Davies said. “Other external factors such as hard-to-remove dirt, fine dust, severe vibrations and blunt impacts can also severely reduce the reliability and lifetime of HMIs. The new additions to the Series 82 family of push-button switches are ideal for use in the most challenging environments”.

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@ECSN_UK #EAO #PAuto #Food

Automation in production - best practice.

Digitalisation and automation in the production are currently billed as the remedy for lack of skilled staff as well as the shortage of energy and resources. However, what does it look like in practice and how can digitalisation solutions really bring competitive and economic advantages through the networking of machines and systems?

Messer Cutting Systems will answer these questions at Cutting World in Essen (D) and show best practice solutions on their stand and at two technical lectures: Roger Kilian-Kehr, CDO Global, and Ingo Staudinger, Product Manager Material Handling and Laser, will focus on the competitive advantages of digitalisation and economies from automation in their lectures  at the thermal cutting day at Cutting World. Interested participants will have the opportunity afterwards to exchange views with the technical specialists on their stand^*.

Laser stays in ascendancy.
The very fast developing laser technology plays a very important role in automation. Available laser powers have increased dramatically in a short time. The trend is reenforced by further technologies such as different beams forms and optimisation through gas mixtures.

With the new laser cutting machine ELEMENT L, Messer Cutting Systems makes possible performance jumps in laser technology. The combination of various features and powerful software ensures maximum productivity and performance. “We have developed a very special highly dynamic laser bevel unit for the ELEMENT L. It covers a range of inclination of +/- 50 degrees and is characterised by a greatly increased dynamics with focus on the cut quality. We no longer need to stop the machine for hole piercing. This naturally means a better efficiency and protects the machine as well”, summarises Ingo Staudinger. “The resulting increased output forces an acceleration of the unloading process. Thanks to the improved quality we can – wherever possible – also change to top side bevels. This leads to a drastic acceleration for manual sorting and reduces the error quotient for automated unloading of bevel parts to a minimum.”

Digitalisation is so simple.
Roger Kilian-Kehr shows what competitive advantages are possible in contract manufacture from digitalisation and automation using impressive examples from practice. “Many companies have no idea how easy it is to get into digitalisation and how much even small steps can achieve”, the digitalisation expert explains.

“We have numerous customers who just started with individual processes and then built up further step by step. A modular solution concept is most suitable for this. Our modular approach includes various software modules which can be combined in such a way as to provide the appropriate solution to specific customer problems.”

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^*Visitors to Cutting World can find out, during the exhibition from 25th to 27th April on the Messer Cutting Systems stand (Stand 8C112 in Hall 8), how metalworking companies can work ever faster and more purposefully in their production using this digital modular solution for relevant information in real time.
Here the digital offering covers the production process from creating quotations, via nesting plans and production planning right up to material handling, production monitoring and process analysis. With these solutions aligned to the customer, the company can optimise the metal processing of their processes, work more efficiently, reduce their costs and increase their productivity.
With their presence in Essen the company underlines not only their World-wide leading position as producer of cutting technology and the most modern cutting machines but also demonstrates once more their expertise with “Solutions beyond machines”.

@MesserCutting @MesserCuttingEU #cuttingworld @PresseBox #Automation 

Machine reduces risk of assembly errors.

The Danfoss Power Solutions' WalformConnect machine, With an array of digital features, data tracking, and cloud connectivity, enables simple and safe hydraulic tube forming within the Walform® system — a leading cold forming metric tube fitting system — driving reliable performance and optimized production processes.

Designed to help customers ensure correct forming of high-performance hydraulic tubes, the WalformConnect machine features an array of digital capabilities and connectivity options. The new machine reduces the risk of assembly errors with a barcode scanner that verifies the correct tooling to use. In addition, the machine automatically indicates the compatible clamping jaw part number and tube parameters.

The WalformConnect machine enables in-depth production monitoring by capturing a range of real-time data, such as cycle times, machine temperature, and tool clamping status. Operators and supervisors can easily access information on what proportion of a production lot is complete, the cycle time per order, and more. The ability to monitor multiple machines in the cloud enables easier operational planning. In addition, historical production data and information on past orders can be saved on an individual machine or in the cloud, enabling easy local or remote analysis to further improve production. The machine can be fully integrated into a customer’s manufacturing process, allowing for paperless production with orders sent directly from an enterprise resource planning system.

To maximize WalformConnect machine uptime, real-time monitoring can automatically provide maintenance teams with information to support error resolution, while remote software updates and failure analysis further reduce the risk of production delays.

“Customers around the world rely on the Walform system for dependable, leak-free performance when it matters most,” said Christian Kuenstel, global product management leader, Connectors, Danfoss Power Solutions. “Our new WalformConnect machine will help make it even easier to ensure fast and safe tube assembly through its suite of digital capabilities. With complete visibility into production data, supervisors can enhance efficiency, ensure quality, and minimize the risk of unplanned downtime. WalformConnect is a win-win for anyone that wants streamlined production and absolute tube-fitting reliability in high-pressure and high-vibration applications where safety is crucial.”

The WalformConnect machine enables easy and safe forming of steel and stainless steel tubing in 6 to 42 millimeter sizes. The Walform system is widely used in demanding industry applications throughout agriculture, construction, manufacturing, transport, oil and gas, and more.

@Danfoss @NapierPR #Maunfacturing #PAuto 

Celebrating game-changing industrial automation.

The winners of the Schneider Electric 2022 Global Alliance Excellence Awards have been announced. This is an annual competition that recognises exceptional innovative initiatives, services and achievements within industrial digitisation.

Encompassing Alliance System Integrators (SIs), Machine Integrators (MIs), and Industrial Automation Distributors (IADs), the awards celebrate those that have demonstrated game-changing digital capabilities through innovative deployments of Schneider Electric Internet-of-Things (IoT) technologies within its EcoStruxure platform. The awards also recognise cross-collaboration within the Alliance ecosystem, acknowledging best-in-class partnerships on sustainability, agility and resiliency of customer solutions.

“Partnership is the key to delivering the efficiency, sustainability and profitability today’s industries need to thrive,” said Johan Vanderplaestse, Senior Vice President, Industrial Automation at Schneider Electric. “Schneider Electric Alliance partners are driving today’s industrial digital transformation. Our Excellence Awards shine a light on supreme system integration, interoperability and innovation that underpins next-generation industries.”

The awards were presented to 16 winners at a special celebration during Schneider Electric’s annual Global Alliance Partners conference in Las Vegas (NV USA). The conference brought together an international delegation and cross section of Alliance partners and coincided with the Schneider Electric Innovation Summit North America to bring members closer to software-centric industrial automation solutions and business strategies to drive mutual growth.

Based on several different categories, notable winners of the 2022 Global Alliance Excellence Awards include:

Global Alliance Partner of the Year Award: Botek (Turkey) and ATEG Elektrotechnik GmbH (Germany) for outstanding growth in training and customer wins. As well as George T. Hall (USA) for outstanding growth in Control System/Modernisation and LABTRONIX TECNOLOGIA EM AUTOMACAO LTDA (Brazil) for growth in Telemetry  Global EcoStruxure Partner of the Year Award: Alliance Automation (Australia), Platinum Engineering (GB), Rexel (France) and ZYD (China) for exceptional project implementation of Schneider Electric EcoStruxure architecture   Certified Engineer of the Year Award: Thach Nguyenduy from Energy Technical Service JSC (Vietnam), Balasaheb Mardhekar from Pinnacle Industrial Controls Pvt.Ltd (India) and Maxime LeBlanc from Cebeo Belgium   Global Partner of the Year Award: Anord Mardix (GB) and I.E.M.A SRL (Italy)  Global Digital Alliance IAD of the Year Award: Graybar (US)   Global Alliance Partner Ecosystem Award: Westcon (Brazil) and Rexel (India)

“The Schneider Electric Alliance Partner Program facilitates co-innovation across a unique ecosystem of industrial automation professionals,” continued Vanderplaestse. “As these awards demonstrate, through their collaboration with Schneider Electric, Alliance partners are crucial in delivering safety, security, efficiency, reliability, sustainability, and profitability for customer operations using best-in-class digital manufacturing technologies alongside expert support. Digitalisation is not the future; it is powering the now. By embarking on ever-more innovative digital transformation initiatives, our partners are implementing the industries of the future, today.”

@SchneiderElec @SchneiderUKI @teamlewisglobal #PAuto #IoT

Machine visualisation solution.

PACSystems RXi HMI delivers visualisation for the digital age: intuitive graphics, smartphone-like usability, collaboration from anywhere and industrial ruggedness.

Machine builders in any industrial application can now use Emerson’s PACSystems™ RXi HMI, a next-generation machine visualisation solution designed to help set their systems apart for customers. The new system easily helps users overcome the limitations of lower budgets, fewer people and higher productivity demands. This highly intuitive human-machine interface (HMI) addresses the needs of today’s industrial workforce with easy-to-use, smartphone-like graphical displays without sacrificing rugged, industrial performance.

“Machine builders and OEMs are no longer ‘one and done’ suppliers to their customers. Today, they become long-term collaborators by developing new and better ways to solve customer problems,” said Jeff Householder, president of Emerson’s machine automation solutions business. “The new PACSystems RXi HMI is an easy, cost-effective way to add significant customer value to a system by enabling new levels of ease of use, increasing productivity, speeding communications, improving analytics and business intelligence capabilities, and easing the move into IIoT. In every way, the RXi HMI is built for real industrial environments as well as the next-generation of industrial workers.”

Unlike traditional resistive displays, PACSystems RXi HMI is designed with projective capacitive touchscreen technology that allows users to interact with the visual display with 10-point multitouch capabilities like swipe, pinch or zoom to move to the next screen or expand a chart, enabling easy operation by a wide range of personnel with varying levels of training and experience.

The system comes pre-loaded and pre-licensed with the advanced Movicon™ WebHMI software, so the device is conveniently ready to operate out of the box, saving customer time. PACSystems RXi HMI is HTML5-ready which allows users to collaborate from anywhere, so that the operations, management and maintenance teams can all view the same screen at the same time, no matter the distance. This immediate sharing of information and access to expertise reduces maintenance costs and improves productivity.

In addition, customers will value the faster access to data-based operational insights to maximise overall equipment effectiveness. The PACSystems RXi HMI, with Movicon WebHMI at its core, is IIoT-ready for data analysis, troubleshooting and diagnostics, placing the operational insights customers need at their fingertips. A data trending tool provides a clear snapshot of productivity and quality. The SQLite database tool and PAC analyser help users troubleshoot problems and minimise downtime. In addition, it provides extensive protocol support with OPC UA for better data contextualisation and MQTT for easy cloud connectivity, so the solution goes far beyond visualisation.

PACSystems RXi HMI protects against both physical and digital risks. It offers protection in wet applications with certifications for both high-pressure water jets and marine use with an IP66 water resistance rating, as well as being approved for use in a wide range of temperatures from minus 20 to 65 degrees Celsius. In addition, the device is resistant to chemicals, impact, scratches and dust. It is also designed in accordance with IEC 62443 Global Automation Cybersecurity Standards to support end users’ overall digital security strategy.

@Emerson_News @EmersonExchange @EMR_Automation @HHC_Lewis #PAuto #Machine

Machine safety.

The CMSE^® - Certified Machinery Safety Expert qualification provides extensive knowledge about the required safety standards of plant and machinery. The participants qualify as a globally recognised expert for machinery safety with CMSE - and gain an internationally recognised TÜV certificate.

The course is provides a 360° approach to machinery safety:

> Risk assessment > Risk assessment workshop > Mechanical guarding > Safety components & technologies > Electrical safety

> Functional safety of control systems > Functional safety of pressurised fluid systems > Functional safety workshop > Examination and certification

The CMSE^® Application form and associated requirements are sufficiently detailed to ensure that training participants are at a level compatible with the technical content of the training and are capable of undertaking the written examination. Applicants should study the requirements carefully and complete all areas of the application form prior to submission.

Courses are held in the following  countries: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, England, Finland, Germany, Ireland*, Italy, Swedan, USA. If your country is not mentioned the Global CMSE Organisation should be contacted directly

They also offer online courses and  company-internal CMSE training courses. 

*Here are the dates for courses in Ireland:

@Pilz_INT #PAuto #Manufacturing #Safety

Simplifying creation of advanced IIoT applications.

Helps OEMs and end users rapidly configure and implement advanced edge computing, visualisation and IIoT technology

PACSystems™ Edge Solutions is a new portfolio of turnkey industrial edge hardware and software solutions from Emerson. This portfolio simplifies selection and deployment, helping original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), systems integrators, and end users significantly reduce the time spent integrating, developing and validating digital transformation projects. From low footprint connectivity and computing to plantwide analytics and supervision, the portfolio delivers a scalable range of edge capabilities in fit-for-purpose packages. 

The solutions allow personnel in food and beverage, industrial machinery, renewable energy and other industries to easily collect and visualise critical data and analytics locally, right where they work, enabling them to optimise and proactively maintain operations for maximum uptime and efficiency.

Portfolio offers fit-for-purpose packages to reduce the time spent integrating, developing and validating IIoT projects.

Manufacturers are faced with many options for edge hardware and software, making it challenging to piece together effective IIoT solutions that can collect and process data at the edge for deep analysis to improve productivity, energy use, machinery health and more. PACSystems Edge Solutions are fully licensed and optimised combinations of Emerson’s edge and IIoT software and computing hardware, which significantly reduce the time and complexity of selecting, configuring and supporting edge solutions. End users gain faster access to insights from disparate and stranded data sources across the operation, minimising the time to achieve results. OEMs can securely and proactively monitor machine health, improve actionability and visibility into performance, and notify operators of potential issues before they become downtime events.

“Accessing critical data and analytics right at the point of generation empowers plant personnel to take fast, informed action to improve production,” said Sabee Mitra, Emerson’s group president for Systems and Software. “With PACSystems Edge Solutions, any industry application using PLCs can deliver immediate insights when and where operators need them most while maintaining easy scalability.”

Emerson’s new edge solutions leverage Movicon™.NExT, WebHMI, Connext OPC UA server and the PACEdge™ platform in optimised software packages to provide powerful and flexible connectivity, visualisation, and a cloud-enabled toolset. Users can connect openly to any field device or control system to create advanced edge computing, plant and energy analytics and supervisory systems, then present that information on a single, common human machine interface (HMI) from machine to enterprise level.

Individual fit-for-purpose PACSystems Edge Solutions seamlessly interconnect, unlocking easy scalability across the entire platform. Organisations can start with one application and build as future needs grow, easily expanding the value of solutions already in place. They include:

• RXi HMI: Improves visibility into machine operation and performance and empowers operators with quick access to critical information.
• RXi Edge Computing: Harnesses data from any source to deliver real-time insights and machine learning that is immediately accessible to operators to improve decision-making.
• RX3i Edge Controller: Unlocks real-time process optimisation through high-speed, deterministic control and machine intelligence in a single device.
• RXi Edge Analytics: Simplifies access and visibility to plant productivity, performance and energy usage with intuitive, pre-configured analytics.
• RXi Supervisor: Connects plant assets and production data into a comprehensive, real-time view of production operations with anywhere-access visualisation.

End users, systems integrators and OEMs alike will benefit from accelerated application development and secure, open connectivity from device to cloud, helping meet the IIoT needs of engineers and operators, along with the necessary flexibility to support future OT and IT integrations.

@Emerson_News @EMR_Automation @HHC_Lewis #PAuto #IIoT

Machine learning support.

New Seeq Azure Add-on feature enables rapid deployment of Azure Machine Learning algorithms to frontline plant employees.

Additional integration support for Microsoft Azure Machine Learning has been announced by the Seeq Corporation. This new Azure Add-on, which was announced at Microsoft Ignite 2021, an annual conference for developers and IT professionals hosted by Microsoft, enables process manufacturing organizations to deploy machine learning models from Azure Machine Learning as Add-ons in Seeq Workbench. The result is machine learning algorithms and innovations developed by IT departments can be operationalized so frontline OT employees can enhance their decision making and improve production, sustainability indicators, and business outcomes.

Seeq customers include companies in the oil & gas, pharmaceutical, chemical, energy, mining, food and beverage, and other process industries. Investors in Seeq, which has raised over $100M (ca €87m) to date, include Insight Ventures, Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures, Altira Group, Chevron Technology Ventures, and Cisco Investments.

Their strategy for enabling machine learning innovations provides end users with access to algorithms from a variety of sources, including open source, third party and internal data science teams. With the new Azure Machine Learning integration, data science teams can develop models using Azure Machine Learning Studio and then publish them using the Seeq Azure Add-ons feature, available this week on GitHub. Using Seeq Workbench, frontline employees with domain expertise can easily access these models, validate them by overlaying near real-time operational data with the model results, and provide feedback to the data science team. This enables an iterative set of interactions between IT and OT employees, accelerating time to insight for both groups, while creating the continuous improvement loop necessary to sustain the full lifecycle of machine learning operations.

“Seeq and Azure Machine Learning are critical and complementary solutions for a successful machine learning model lifecycle,” says Megan Buntain, Director of Cloud Partnerships at Seeq. “By capitalizing on IT and OT users’ strengths, the Seeq Azure Add-on expands the Seeq experience and creates new opportunities for organizations to scale up model deployment and development.”

Along with increased access to machine learning models through this integration, Seeq’s self-service applications enable frontline employees to perform ad hoc analyses and use the models themselves, rather than rely on an IT team member for support. As the models yield results, Seeq empowers users to scale them across the organization to improve asset reliability, production monitoring, optimization, and sustainability.

In addition to launching the Azure integration, Seeq is also expanding its list of published open source algorithms this week with the addition of a new Seeq Add-on to GitHub for multivariate pattern search. Seeq’s open source gallery also includes algorithms and workflows for correlation and clustering analytics, which users can modify and improve based on their own needs.

@SeeqCorporation @MS_Ignite #PAuto #Manufaturing

Digital twin technology for machine tool manufacturing.

Originally known as pairing technology, and first used by NASA in the early days of space exploration, digital twin technology is now rapidly gaining industry acceptance as one of the most cost-effective means of accelerating the development of products, processes and services.

NUM has launched digital twin technology that enables machine tool manufacturers to reduce their time to market dramatically, by using powerful Industry 4.0 simulation techniques.

For automation products such as machine tools, a digital twin is a virtual model that uses simulation, real-time data acquisition/analysis and machine learning techniques to allow full evaluation of a machine’s dynamic performance before constructing a physical prototype. The same technology can also be employed for customer presentations, virtual commissioning and operator training purposes – and all well before the actual machine itself has even been built.

NUM offers two versions of digital twin technology, to best suit customers’ needs. Both versions are designed for use with NUM’s powerful, open-architecture Flexium+ CNC platform. One version uses a naked Flexium+ controller and resident virtualisation software running on the system’s industrial PC to simulate the twinned machine automation. The other version uses the actual Flexium+ controller that will eventually be incorporated in the machine, linked via EtherCAT to a standalone PC running specialist high speed hardware simulation software to represent the mechatronics of the twinned machine.

The virtual controller version includes a software development kit for creating the software model of the machine. The model is a standalone PLC program that uses predefined components to simulate individual machine elements, such as sensors, spindles, pneumatic cylinders, etc. It is loaded into the integrated PLC of the Flexium+ controller. The Flexium NCK in the controller executes the NC programs and simulates the changing position values of the machine’s axes. To help users visualise the process, NUM’s package includes the CODESYS Depictor software tool produced by CODESYS GmbH, which is used to produce 3D visualisations from the IEC 61131-3 code created by the simulation.

The other version of NUM’s digital twin technology package accommodates real-time data acquisition and analysis. It is based on the ISG-Virtuous hardware simulation software produced by Industrielle Steuerungstechnik GmbH (ISG). The Flexium+ controller that is intended to be used in the physical machine is connected via an EtherCAT network to a standard PC, and interacts with the simulation software in real-time. The PC acts as the twinned virtual machine – with all simulated, virtual components behaving like real components in terms of their interfaces, parameters and operating modes – to accurately replicate the structure and dynamic performance of the real machine. The movements of the machine are displayed realistically on the PC, using the supplied 3D simulation software.

NUM’s new digital twin technology provides machine tool manufacturers with a very powerful and cost-effective means of reducing their developments costs and accelerating their time to market. The virtual controller version is especially useful for the early development stage of a project, before the CNC system has been finalised, while the real-time hardware simulation version has the advantage that all sequencing (PLC) and motion control (CNC) programs that are created during development can simply be transferred to the real machine as soon as it becomes available.

@NUM_CNC #PAuto #Manufacturing