Single-axis motion control now costs just $28 in OEM lots. The Pilot MC3110 motion processor from Performance Motion Devices Inc. is the first of a family of devices that control brushed servo motors. Models designed for brushless servo motors will follow.
The surface-mounted CMOS chip is a 132-pin device that works from 5 V. It's driven by a host microprocessor through an asynchronous bidirectional port. Users, then, can offload resource-intensive motion-control functions from the host. With over 130 commands, the MC3110's instruction set offers flexibility and versatility for application programming.
The chip provides user-selectable profiling models, including S-curve, trapezoidal, and velocity contouring. It accepts input parameters like position, velocity, and acceleration to generate the trajectory. Also, it has a preprogrammed PID filter with feedforward velocity and acceleration that can be scaled, as well as a bias offset.
Additionally, the MC3110 motion processor supports 32-bit position errors. Trace capabilities give designers on-the-fly data storage for analyzing system performance, tuning servo filters, and performing maintenance and diagnostics.
Feedback from an incremental en-coder or an ab-solute encoder or resolver is ac-cepted. And, the chip supports 16-bit digital-to-analog converter (DAC) or 10-bit, 20-kHz pulse-width modulation (PWM) output signals.
Performance Motion Devices Inc., 12 Waltham St., Lexington, MA 02421; (781) 674-9860; fax (781) 674-9861; e-mail: [email protected]; www.pmdcorp.com.
