Quote:
Originally Posted by Tristan Lall
As it seems to be open season on speculation, let me add what my secret agents are telling me: National Instruments (of LabView fame) has a platform called CompactRIO, which is used for industrial controls.
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Well heck, why don't we slap an Allen-Bradley PLC on each robot and call it a day?
From NI's
website:
C Series I/O Modules
A variety of I/O types are available including voltage, current, thermocouple, RTD, accelerometer, and strain gauge inputs; up to ±60 V simultaneous-sampling analog I/O; 12, 24, and 48 V industrial digital I/O; 5 V/TTL digital I/O; counter/timers; pulse generation; and high voltage/current relays. Because the modules contain built-in signal conditioning for extended voltage ranges or industrial signal types, you can usually connect wires directly from the C Series modules to your sensors and actuators.
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I'd LOVE the ability to more easily interface industry standard sensors (inductive proxes, throughbeam and reflective optical sensors, etc.) to the new control system.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri
I could get excited over this
http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/202711
Encoder input and current sensor built in. We could start doing some great things for the community as far as software infrastructure goes.
edit: Looks like this is for low current applications only (8A continuous, 12A peak). Either way, I hope some kind of 'out of the box' feedback solution is integrated into our motor drivers next year. I have helped teams get software solutions running at regionals for the past few events, and the value of something like this would be immense. |
$419 for this module - functionality - even low current functionality - comes at a price!