Xenomai-based Embedded Controller for High-Precision, Synchronized Motion Applications
Chaerin Kim, Ik-Hwan Kim, Taehyoun Kim · 정보과학회 컴퓨팅의 실제 논문지 · 2015
Motion control systems are widely deployed in various industrial automation processes. The motion controller, which is a key element of motion control systems, has stringent real-time constraints. The controller must provide a short and deterministic control message transmission cycle, and minimize the actuation deviation among motor drives. To meet these requirements, hardware-based proprietary controllers have been prevalent. However, since it is becoming difficult for such an approach to meet increasing needs of system interoperability and scalability, nowadays, software-based universal motion controllers are regarded as their substitutes. Recently, embedded motion controller solutions are gaining attention due to low cost and relatively high performance. In this paper, we designed and implemented an embedded motion controller on an ARM-based evaluation board by using Xenomai real-time kernel and other open source software components. We also measured and analyzed the performance of our embedded controller under a realistic test-bed environment. The experimental results show that our embedded motion controller can provide relatively deterministic performance with synchronized control of three motor axis at 2 ms control cycle.