Report on the Current Status of Rework on the Device Profile CiA 408 'Fluid Power, Proportional Valves'
Martin Schindelin · 2012
Device specific profiles provide important advantages when implementing intelligent network structures for machine control. In these supplementary standards (device and application profiles), the behaviour and parameters of standardized devices or applications are specified. For proportional valves, hydrostatic pumps, and hydrostatic transmissions the common device profile CiA 408 has been specified, which is based on the bus independent device profile ‘Fluid Power Technology’ of the VDMA (Verband Deutscher Maschinen- und Anlagenbau). The initial version of CiA 408 was published in 2003. This profile has been implemented by many manufacturers of hydraulic components to provide a common, vendor-independent way of hydraulic device integration into a CANopen system. Since then, the functionality of hydraulic devices has increased: new control modes and sensor interfaces have been defined and a lot of feedback from the field has been collected during the last years. In order to take account of these developments, the fieldbus independent device profile ‘Fluid Power Technology’, was updated in 2011 which resulted in the new version 1.6. This report will give a short overview and point out the changes and new features of the derived CAN bus specific device profile CiA 408.