Software speeds motion system development time.
Press Release Summary:
Controls Toolkit integrates BodeTool(TM) diagnostic program with FilterDesigner(TM) application, generating bode plots to identify resonances and apply control filters. BodeTool is configured via intuitive, menu-driven user interface to yield amplitude-frequency and phase-frequency diagrams. User can excite motion system with sinusoidal sweeps or FFT/random noise signals. Data is displayed for open and closed loop tests, and can be saved to tab-delimited text file.
Original Press Release:
MEI ControlsToolkit Software Speeds Motion System Development Time
Santa Barbara, CA. - 25 April, 2003 - Motion Engineering, Inc. (MEI) today announced the debut of its Controls Toolkit diagnostic software to support their extensive line of motion control systems. The package integrates an intuitive BodeTool(tm) diagnostic program with an easy-to-use FilterDesigner(tm) application, greatly simplifying the task of generating bode plots to identify resonances and apply control filters. The software currently runs under Windows(tm) 2000, NT, and XP operating systems.
"The first thing users will notice is how easily this package generates a bode plot of their system," stated Erik Brewster, MEI's Applications Manager and developer of the Controls Toolkit. "The BodeTool saves time and leads them quickly toward a tuning solution instead of away from it. The technology behind the ControlsToolkit is built into MEI hardware platforms, so they don't have to spend time setting up transducers and analyzers and loading software. And they can analyze the same way every time for tight qualitative comparisons."
Relying on familiar bode plotting rudiments, the BodeTool is configured via an intuitive, menu-driven user interface to yield amplitude-frequency and phase-frequency diagrams. Users can safely excite their motion system with either sinusoidal sweeps, or FFT/random noise signals. Data is clearly displayed for both open- and closed-loop tests, and can be saved to a tab-delimited text file that is exportable to third-party spreadsheet or statistical software. Plots are displayed automatically, and can be processed with a smoothing tool. "Customers who have traditionally applied their own unique mix of equipment and software to this task are going to be pleasantly surprised," said Paul Hewitt, Vice President of Engineering at MEI. "We think they'll be impressed enough to use it as a stand-alone diagnostic."
A common industry concern of bode analysis is the time and degree of expertise required to utilize hardware and software tools in a successful diagnostic. "A lot of businesses call an outside expert to do this sort of thing," explained Brewster. "They know that bode analysis still reigns supreme in finding resonances and tuning, but they're intimidated by the mathematics and hardware set-ups. The Controls Toolkit is resident inside our motion control systems and does the hard stuff for them so that they can get busy fixing things." Even so, experts will delight in the Controls Toolkit's easy access to many features they are used to, including single- or two-axis excitation, multistage notch and low-pass filtering, and both real-time and simulated modes. The ControlsToolkit is SynqNet compatible and supports up to six biquad stages per axis for 12th-order filtering of complex data. The system is also accessible across standard TCP/IP networks to allow diagnostics of remote customer sites, and comes software scripted for automatic testing.
More information can be obtained from Motion Engineering, Inc. at http://motioneng.com/controls_toolkit.html
About MEI
Founded in 1987, Motion Engineering Inc. designs, manufactures, markets and sells performance motion control solutions to high value capital equipment builders in the semiconductor, electronic assembly, robotics and medical markets. MEI's core hardware and software technologies combined with advanced tools and engineering services allow OEMs to build better machines, faster. MEI is a privately held company headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA with offices and development centers in the US, Japan, UK, Germany, and Korea. MEI's processes and business systems are ISO9001:2000 certified and designed to serve the high standards demanded by the world's leading capital equipment suppliers. Information is available on the Web at www.motioneng.com.
