At SPS 2019, Yaskawa is once again focusing on connectivity at all levels of industrial automation—from the field and control level of machine architecture, through the systematic use of digital technologies, to higher-level management and monitoring systems. The company is systematically focusing on openness and ease of integration by supporting the commonly used fieldbus systems with compatible function blocks and interfaces.
A current example is the Sigma-7 servo system: In addition to Yaskawa’s own Mechatrolink-III motion bus or an integrated EtherCAT interface, the axes are now also available with an integrated PROFINET interface, enabling seamless integration into corresponding plant environments without additional option cards.
Yaskawa also relies on platform- and manufacturer-independent communication via OPC UA (Open Platform Communication Unified Architecture) to network components, plant sections and software. Corresponding interfaces are now available for the Micro and Slio CPUs as well as for the smartPanel and Panel PC HMIs.
Additions to the proven Slio I/O system are also expected at the trade fair: new DI/DO modules offer up to 16 digital inputs and outputs. And as an additional safety function, the system will also support Fail Safe over EtherCAT (FSoE) in the future, in addition to PROFIsafe with Profinet.
Last but not least, Yaskawa will also present other new products and groundbreaking solutions for networked Industry 4.0 environments in the fields of control technology, drive systems and industrial robots. For example, a live demo cell will demonstrate how the cutting-edge Singular Control solution can be used to control robots, servo drives, inverter drives and I/Os via a single controller. This is possible thanks to the MP3300iec RBT compact machine controller. A further focus will be the “Yaskawa Connected Factory YCF 1.0” software platform, which enables data from various machines and components to be collected, analyzed and visualized both locally and via a remote connection in real time.