Festo and Durr Adopt SERCOS III
Sussen, Germany: The group of companies actively supporting the SERCOS III real-time Ethernet solution has grown, with Festo AG, one of the largest German automation specialists, adding the international communication standard to its portfolio. Festo manufactures pneumatic and electrical components and systems. As Festo's first SERCOS customer, Durr AG will be integrating Festo solutions into the Durr EcoRPC robot guidance system. Durr is a leading machine and plant-manufacturing group with around 90% of its business in the automobile industry worldwide. Durr also supplies the aviation, mechanical engineering, and chemical and pharmaceuticals industries.
Both companies are new members of SERCOS International (SI) and bring with them their know-how from the automation industry, joining manufacturers, users, research institutes and associations that are working together on the ongoing development of the SERCOS interface. This ensures that the communications bus maintains the state of the art in technology to meet the requirements of mechanical and automation engineering.
"We are currently sensing a strong change in the orientation of machine and plant manufacture. The desire for faster, higher-performing and more efficient production processes is the inspiration behind this," says Uwe Graeff, Manager Business Unit Netware Interface Control of Festo AG. "SERCOS III, as an industry-suitable, fast and deterministic data backbone, offers an optimal integration platform. In addition to high performance, the reasons for Festo's decision also included the manufacturer neutrality and future-proofing of the bus system."
For Durr, the main focus is upon the controlling of all components in an application with SERCOS III, without having to incur the additional expense of a separate safety bus. "In all product areas, it is about the highest availability and reliability of the applications, especially in the operation of painting robots," emphasises Ronald Feifel of Durr Systems GmbH. "That's why Durr has placed emphasis on having a fast, trouble-free and deterministic field bus as the process bus for its second generation of robots."
SERCOS, an acronym for SErial Realtime COmmunication System, is among the leading digital interfaces for communication between control units, drives, decentralized peripheral devices and I/O. All three SERCOS generations are part of international standards IEC 61784-2 (Digital data communication for measurement and control) and IEC 61158 (Field bus for use in industrial control systems). The SERCOS interface has been used for more than 15 years in mechanical and automation engineering with more than two million SERCOS nodes in use worldwide.
For additional information contact:
Ronald Larsen, Managing Director
SERCOS North America
405 Loblolly Bay Drive
Santa Rosa Beach, Florida 32459
800/573-7267 Tel & Fax: 850/269-0908
E-mail: info@sercos.com
www.sercos.com
or
Peter Lutz, Managing Director
SERCOS International e.V.
Kueblerstrasse 1, 73079 Suessen, Germany
Phone +49 (0) 7162-9468-65
Fax: +49 (0) 7162-9468-66
Email: p.lutz@sercos.de
www.sercos.de
