Winning teams will share more than $16 million in FIRST-specific scholarships to leading STEM universities, including the University of Toronto, University of Waterloo and MIT.

Teams earned invitations at Canadian regional competitions took place in Alberta, Ontario and Quebec over the past few weeks. The Canadian regionals brought together 121 teams of 25 to 30 students, aged 14 to 18, who designed and built robots in six weeks, guided by volunteer science and technology experts.

“Our competitors continually amaze us with their ingenuity and this year was no different,” said Mark Breadner, FIRST Robotics Canada’s Executive Director. “FRC gives students a taste of what it’s like to solve real world problems using robotics. It inspires students to pursue futures in STEM fields, and encourages them to consider the ethics of competition and practice the ideas of ‘gracious professionalism’ and ‘co-opertition.’”

Canadian teams headed to St. Louis are:

Alberta
Alberta Longhorn Robotics Society, Calgary
Ernest Manning High School, Calgary

Ontario
Assumption Secondary School, Windsor
Burlington Central High School, Burlington
Crescent School, Toronto
Gordon Graydon Memorial Secondary School, Mississauga
Kinetic Knights, Kincardine
King’s Christian Collegiate, Oakville
Kingston Collegiate & Vocational Institute, Kingston
Lo-Ellen Robotics, Sudbury
Near North Student Robotics Initiative, North Bay
Oakville Community Robotics, Oakville
Orchard Park Secondary School, Stoney Creek
Runnymede Collegiate Institute, Toronto
Simbiotics, St. Catharines
Sinclair Secondary School, Whitby
St. Mary Catholic Secondary School, Grimsby
St. Mildred’s-Lightbourn School, Oakville
Theory6, Mississauga
W.A.F.F.L.E.S Community Robotics, Kingston
WE FIRST, London (two teams)
Westlane Secondary School, Niagara Falls

Quebec
College Regina Assumpta, Montreal
École Honoré-Mercier, Montreal
Ecole secondaire La Frontalière (CS des Hauts-Cantons), Coaticook
Loyola High School, Montreal

Scheduled for May 7, 2013, the one-day show provides a forum for face-to-face interactions where engineers, product developers, machine builders and systems integrators can discuss, network, solicit advice and ‘kick the tires’ on the latest technologies and applications from the Aerospace, Automotive, Defense, Machine Building, Medical, Metal Fabrication, Packaging, and Power Generation industries.

“The inaugural launch of DEX last year in Mississauga, ON was a big hit and we look forward to expanding into other regions across Canada over the next few years,” said Alan Macpherson, DEX Show Manager and Publisher of Design Engineering magazine. “We concluded that the B.C. lower mainland would support such an event this spring and we are very pleased with the response from both local and national manufacturers and distributors. To date, between DEX and MMP Expo, we have more than 60 exhibitors and expect to sell out by mid-April.”

This year, the Vancouver-area show will be co-located with the Metalworking Manufacturing & Production Expo (MMP Expo). Employing the same efficient tabletop format, MMP Expo will attract regional manufacturers and job shops, as well as maintenance, tool rooms, automotive, aerospace, energy and resources, medical manufacturing, transportation and tool-die moldmaking attendees.

In addition to the new location, DEX will return to the Mississauga Convention Centre on October 30, 2013. To secure exhibition space or sponsorship position, contact Design Engineering Publisher and DEX Show Manager, Alan Macpherson, at amacpherson@design-engineering.com or 416-510-6756.
www.dex2013.com
www.mmpshow.com

This is made possible, the company says, by the BionicOpter’s ability to move each of its four wings independently, as well as control each wing’s amplitude, frequency and pitch. Including its actuated head and body, the robot exhibits 13 degrees of freedom, which allows it to rapidly accelerate, decelerate, turn and fly backwards.

“This unique way of flying is made possible by lightweight construction and the integration of functions: components such as sensors, actuators and mechanical components, together with open- and closed-loop control systems, which are installed in a very tight space and matched accurately to one another,” explained Dr. Heinrich Frontzek, Festo’s head of corporate communications and future concepts.

In total, the BionicOpter’s wings are actuated by nine servomotors. The first, positioned in the base of its main body housing, regulates the frequency of the wing beats, which can be varied between 900 to 1200 times per minute (15 to 20 hz). Additionally, four motors (one at each joint) independently control each wing’s amplitude—or how far it travels per beat—to anywhere between 80 to 130 degrees of deflection.

Each wing can also be rotated up to 90 degrees to control angle of attack and allow the BionicOpter to fly forward and backward. To save on weight, the robotic insect’s head and body actuation relies on four shape memory alloy structures that move the head side to side and the tail to move vertically.

To coordinate movement and provide flight stability, the BionicOpter is equipped with a series of inertial, positional and acceleration sensors that record wing position and orientation as well as the tilt, speed and direction of the dragonfly’s flight. That recorded flight data is then evaluated in real time by its on-board ARM microcontroller, which calculates all the parameters that can be adjusted mechanically.

According to the company, the robotic dragonfly’s wings are composed of carbon fibre rods reinforcing a polyester membrane while its main body is a combination of aluminium as well as sintered polyamide and ABS plastic. Two 7.6-volt lithium polymer batteries supply power and an integrated wireless receiver allows the dragonfly to be remotely piloted by smartphone.

Like all of Festo’s robotic creations, the BionicOpter is the product of the company’s Bionic Learning Network, a research partnership between the company, universities and development companies, that focuses on creating industrial technology based on design principles drawn from nature.
www.festo.com/bionic

So when problems arise, how can you tell if it is the drive, the motor or the load? Here are a few tips to tackle the problem in a quick, systematic way, making a few key measurements as you go.

Imbalance Measurements
A good place to start is with a measurement of current drawn by the motor. When we talk about motors here, we are referring to three-phase induction motors, the workhorse of industry.

Motors are balanced loads: The current they draw on each phase should be about the same with less than 6 percent as measured below being a general guide line for conventional, across-the-line motors. If they are not balanced, the cause could be internal to the motor (deteriorating stator insulation, for example), or it could be the result of voltage imbalance. A small voltage imbalance will cause a significantly larger current imbalance.

In the case of a ASD, the output voltages are electronically controlled and should be well balanced if the drive is functioning correctly. So, if there is any problem with current imbalance, compare the voltage imbalance at the output of the drive to that at the motor. A difference suggests a problem in the wiring, connections, etc. between the drive and motor.

If the voltage balance at the motor is good, a problem with the motor would be suspected. The voltage output waveform from an ASD is a sequence of pulses that has significant high frequency content. Accurate measurements usually require a DMM with a suitable low pass filter function.

Voltage and current imbalance measurements should be taken at the line side of the drive. Drives are generally not as sensitive to voltage imbalance as motors, since the incoming AC is rectified to DC which charges the capacitors on the DC bus. Voltage imbalance will usually show as a somewhat higher ripple voltage that most drives tolerate quite well. In fact, many drives will operate with a phase missing albeit with a severely de-rated (about 50 percent) load.

Over-voltage and Under-voltage
Drives have diagnostic codes that identify the cause of trip. Generally speaking, they can be classified as over-voltage, under-voltage or overload (over-current). Note that mechanical starters only have overload trips; they’re not concerned with over- or under-voltage.

Drives turn sine wave AC into DC (converter section), and then turn the DC back into AC (inverter section). However, the AC at the output is not a sine wave. It’s a special waveform known as the pulse-width modulated (PWM). The PWM, from the motor’s point of view, is accepted as if it were a sine wave — almost.

For now, though, let’s focus on the drive internals, specifically on what’s commonly referred to as the DC link. The DC link is nothing more than a capacitor bank, usually with a series link inductor (reactor) thrown in for filtering and protection. The DC link is carefully monitored by the drive; over-voltage or under-voltage refers to the voltage of the DC link. Under-voltage can be caused externally by voltage sags on the drive input. The Sags and Swells function on power quality analyzers can help identify line-related under-voltage problems occurring over time.

Problems could also exist internally with the DC link capacitors and/or reactor. In many drives, there are external test points to measure the DC link voltage. To check the voltage variations on the capacitors, use the min/max function of a digital multimeter or a power quality analyzer.

Check if voltage regulation is within the manufacturer’s specification. When troubleshooting a complete system, the tendency is to view the drive or PLC as the most susceptible to voltage sags. However, studies have shown that low cost ice-cube control relays are often the source of sag-related problems as they’re the first to drop out when voltage drops off. So don’t forget to look at any external control circuit while you’re troubleshooting intermittent system shutdowns.

Over-voltage could be caused by line-related voltage transients. At one point, utility capacitor switching transients were notorious for causing over-voltage trips in drives. Over-voltage could also be caused by regenerative loads. Loads such as cranes and elevators generate voltage when they decelerate. Dynamic braking circuits are installed to shunt off this energy from the drive, where they would otherwise be rectified by the output devices of the drive and show up as over-voltage on the DC link. Problems such as improper installation can result in over-voltage trips.

Load Profiling
To troubleshoot the interaction between the load and the motor, you have to understand the relationship between torque and current. In essence, motor is a device to turn electrical energy (current) into rotational mechanical energy (torque), via the magical effects of magnetism.

What a load demands of a motor is torque. For all practical purposes, this torque is directly proportional to current used by the motor. This should make perfect sense, because we all know that for constant-speed motors—which include all motors with electro-mechanic starters—voltage is, or should be, stable and current is the variable.

When a load demands more torque and current than a motor can supply, the result is an overload condition. Overloading will cause overheating of the motor. Motor controllers will shut down the motor (and thereby the load) rather than allow permanent winding insulation.

Overloading is always relative to time: A high overload will trip the motor in a short time, while a lower level of overload will take longer to trip the motor. When we want to evaluate the impact of a load on the motor drive system, we have to measure the current it draws. Of course, this current draw typically varies over time as the load varies. The measurement of current over some period of time is called load profiling.

For load profiling, the power-record function of power quality analyzers is ideal for capturing a trend line of current consumption. A cursor enables you to identify the current values at different points on the trend line, along with a time stamp for those points.

Before load profiling, first make the current imbalance measurement to make sure the motor is healthy. If you don’t have a 3-phase instrument and your concern is nuisance tripping, then pick the highest current leg and measure that (an overload on one leg will trip all three legs).

When load profiling, we are looking for periods of especially high current, relative to the full load amps of the motor. Full load amp information is available on the nameplate of the motor. If there is a service factor, the range calculation should be made on the basis of full load amps multiplied by service factor. While high current is the main concern, low current should also be investigated.

A motor is most efficient, and has the best power factor, in the 60 to 80 percent range of its full load amps. There is no immediate penalty for under-loading — the motor will not trip. In fact, many motors are routinely oversized for the load, on the theory that the motor is less likely to trip from overload.

However, as is most often the case, there is no free lunch. In the case of under-loading an across-the-line motor, the power factor will be poor and the energy company sends a higher bill. An ASD isolates the power system from the effects of a lightly loaded motor.

To determine whether it’s the load, the motor or the drive that is causing problems, it helps to proceed systematically. Start with the basic motor measurements (imbalance) to check the health of the motor itself. Then do some simple drive measurements to check for causes of over- or under-voltage trips. Finally, profile the load to find the cause for intermittent overload trips.
www.flukecanada.ca

Colin Plastow is Industrial Product Manager for Fluke Electronics Canada.

T-Bot and H-Bot structures are examples of application specific designs that place more emphasis on model-based design and system integration. Used extensively in pick-and-place, sorting, gluing and inspection applications, these structures (named for the shape of their construction) are built around the belt drive components and employ two motors mounted to two pulleys driving one belt.

This is in contrast to standard XY configurations, which are constructed with two individual linear actuators where one actuator carries the other. In this standard configuration, the first actuator moves all the mass of the second actuator. In T-Bot and H-Bot configurations, the motors are stationery and, therefore, less mass is moved. Also, the space requirements are reduced as one axis can be minimized.

The resulting increase in performance, along with ease of manufacturing and the ability to fit into a smaller space envelope, make these structures attractive to machine builders; however, it’s important to note that motion control programming can be a challenge. When programming the machine, both position and timing must be addressed if accurate linear motion is required.

T-Bot and H-Bots work in a similar fashion to an Etch-A-Sketch. When the motors rotate at the same rate in the same direction, you have a linear motion along the X-axis. Moving the motors in opposing directions produces movement along the Y-axis. If one motor remains stationery and one motor is moving the motion will run 45 degrees across the XY plain.

Figure 1: The motion profile of a T-Bot performing a simple pick-and-place routine. The distance is representative of a linear move by a single motor.

X-Y orthogonal actuator configurations utilize standard Cartesian co-ordinates, which allows for each motor’s position to be easily mapped to the linear distance along the actuator or the axis of motion. T-Bot and H-Bots also move in the same physical Cartesian plain; however, the motor position coordinates are transformed as shown in the diagrams below.

The motion profile of the T-Bot (Figure 1) illustrates the desired motion that we would like to achieve in real space. This profile has been chosen to represent a simple pick-and-place routine. The distance is representative of a linear move by a single motor, seen in pulses or steps.

When the two motors on a T-Bot move together, independently or alternate, a different motion is achieved. The equations that produce the required motion of the T-bot are seen below—X and Y representing the points on the desired T-Bot motion profile:

Motor 1 = -X +Y
Motor 2 = -X – Y

The moves that each individual motor must make to achieve the desired motion can be seen in Figure 2.

Figure 2: To produce a linear motion, acceleration/deceleration rates and speeds of the T-Bot motors must match to minimize deviation at the start or end of the move.

Here, the graph represents the distance each motor moves individually to achieve the rectangular move. This is based on equations that relate back to the way the single belt of the T-Bot functions.

Accurate synchronization of the two motors is required to produce a linear move, with acceleration/deceleration rates and speeds matching to minimize any deviation from the linear move at the start and end of the move. Graph 3 represents the motion profile of the two motors working together.

Graph 3: The motion profile of a T-Bot’s motors working in tandem to produce a common routine in manufacturing industries.

The resulting motion profile is rotated 135 by degrees and offset from the actual motion that the T-Bot accomplishes. Due to the way that the single belt of the actuator functions, this movement of the motors produces the simple pick-and-place routine commonly used in manufacturing industries.

With the wide variety of motion controllers available on the market, providing specific guidance on the implementation for these systems is difficult. However, with an understanding of the basic coordinate and speed transformations, engineers should be able to implement one of these configurations and take advantage of the unique mechanical advantages offered by T-Bot and H-Bot systems.
www.myostat.ca

Alexa Loiskandl is a sales engineer with Myostat Motion Control and a recent graduate of Carleton University with a B.Eng Biomedical and Electrical Engineering.

Chris Bursack, director marketing, ISC Companies, Inc. of Plymouth, Minn., will become PTDA’s president in 2013. He succeeds Mitch Bouchard, secretary treasurer of Ottawa-based General Bearing Service Inc.

Bursack has been active in PTDA since 2005, when he joined the PTDA Marketing Committee where he worked on projects such as the Engineering and Logistics Value Calculators. He joined the Board of Directors in 2009.

“It is my distinct honor to serve as the 2013 President of PTDA,” said Bursack. “Now that we’ve rolled out a brand-new website, and as we move into the second year of our revised strategic plan, we hope to continue to grow membership and engagement by all our members, and look forward to some great new programs in the months to come.”

Joining Bursack on the 2013 PTDA Board of Directors will be:

• First Vice President Ken Miko, director strategic accounts, BDI (Cleveland, Ohio
• Second Vice President Harold Dunaway, executive vice president finance and administration, Motion Industries Inc. (Birmingham, Ala.)
• Treasurer Keith Nowak, president, MPT Drives, Inc. (Madison Heights, Mich.)
• Immediate Past President Mitch Bouchard, secretary treasurer, General Bearing Service Inc. (Ottawa, Ontario)

Directors:

• Ajay Bajaj, president, Rotator Products Limited (Woodbridge, Ontario)
• LeRoy Burcroff, vice president sales, Bearing Service Inc. (Livonia, Mich.)
• Bill Childers, president, C&U Americas (Plymouth, Mich.)
• Thomas Clawser, sales & marketing manager, Brown Transmission & Bearing Co. (Lancaster, Penn.)
• Carlton Harvey, vice president ind. sales & corp. quality, Jamaica Bearings Co., Inc. (New Hyde Park, N.Y.)
• David Mayer, vice president marketing, Kaman Industrial Technologies Corporation (Bloomfield, Conn.)

Founded in 1960, the Power Transmission Distributors Association (PTDA) is the leading association for the industrial power transmission/motion control (PT/MC) distribution channel. A U.S.-based trade association, PTDA represents 171 power transmission/motion control distribution firms that generate more than $11 billion in sales and span 3,400 locations in the United States, Canada and eight other countries. PTDA members also include 183 manufacturers that supply the PT/MC industry.
www.ptda.org

“Leveraging our expertise in electric motor design, we’ve developed an electromagnetic design that produces competitive power-density and efficiency with non-rare-earth magnets,” said Eric R. Ridenour, President and Chief Executive Officer of UQM Technologies, Inc. “This is great progress toward our objective of identifying magnet materials and technology that can deliver the performance our customers expect while limiting our exposure to price and supply concerns associated with rare earth magnets.”

This work on non-rare-earth magnet motors is funded through a $4 million award to UQM as part of a DOE Advanced Research and Development Grant. Under the agreement, UQM is cost-sharing 25 percent of the total effort. The engineering team at UQM is working collaboratively with Ames Laboratory, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory to develop and apply these non-rare-earth magnets in a high-performance permanent magnet motor.

“The key to using non-rare-earth magnets in electric motors for vehicles is our patent-pending motor geometry, which in part defines the shape and magnetization direction of the permanent magnets,” said Jon Lutz, UQM Technologies Vice President of Engineering. “The completion of the electromagnetic design and analysis task is a significant step in the process of advancing motor and generator technology for electric and hybrid electric vehicles, providing an alternative to rare-earth magnets in permanent-magnet motor designs”

The next phase under the DOE grant is the mechanical design of the motor. Work on this is now underway at UQM to produce a concept-unit build in the next calendar year.
www.uqm.com

The first step is to understand what motor options are available for motion control. From DC to AC, brushed to brushless, each motor has its own benefits and drawbacks. This article examines a sampling of the available options and specific parameters designers should consider during the selection process.

When it comes to narrowing down the choices, a designer must consider the specifics of the machine design itself and balance the project budget with desired performance and environmental considerations. The following check list will help to ensure all parameters are considered.

Speed
How fast does the motor need to run? Check the rated or constant speed and maximum or peak speed of the motor you are considering. Can the motor, coupled with a ball screw or gearbox, provide the speed required for your job?

Torque and Inertia
Torque, the amount of radial force on the motor shaft, is another primary consideration. Can the selected motor provide enough torque to move your load? Keep in mind that coupling the motor with a gearbox will help to achieve torque but you must ensure you have enough speed to make them effective. Designers must also consider the weight of the mass they are moving and consider if the motor can handle the acceleration and deceleration of the mass without over-driving the motor. Gearboxes reduce the inertia by the square of the ration and are often used to combat the inertia from large loads.

Secondary Considerations include:

Stepper and servo motors can come with complete driver/controller/encoder systems integrated in to the motor itself.

Communication
How do you plan on sending commands to your motor? Will you need to communicate with multiple motors or be covering large distances between motor and control box? Different motors offer different communication options and add-ons. Motor types also vary from pulse or step/direction type to more advanced methods such as Ethernet.
There are also specific protocols from daisy chaining motors; you can utilize methods such as CAN or serial interfaces for these. Again, if your controller needs to send a specific type of command, this may dictate which motor you choose as not all motors offer all options.

Accuracy and Resolution
How accurate do the motors have to be? Are you measuring minute dimensions with a sensor that requires large amounts of precision? Are you simply moving a large plastic piece from one conveyor to another?

Some motors, usually basic steppers, offer a lower resolution, meaning less steps, pulses or small movements per one revolution of the motor shaft. Servos usually offer a high resolution, offering up to 50,000 pulses per revolution. The finer your move needs to be, the higher the resolution of your motor should be.

Motor resolution does not necessarily equal accuracy and the two shouldn’t be confused. A stepper motor could be driven by a micro stepping drive with a mathematical resolution of 32,000 micro steps per rotation. However, without sensor feedback, the motor itself may not have the right commutation to move such a small step.

Position encoders vary in type and, although they offer a given resolution, internally they may have intrinsic, kinematic error due to inconsistencies in component manufacturing. Optical encoders rely on holes accurately cut in a glass disk and resolvers rely on consistency in the windings as well as the hardware that holds those windings.

The closed loop system of the motor also contributes to accuracy as the tuning parameters affect both speed and position, reaction time and settling location.

Environmental concerns
In what environment will your motor be running? Will there be a large amount of dust, particulate or water coming into contact with the motor. An IP rating will give you an idea of what environment the motor is suited to run in. Some motors are water resistant; others offer shaft seals which help prevent particulates from getting into the inner workings of the motor through the shaft.

Heat
What is the temperature and air flow like in the area the motor is to be placed? Heat is a concern when it comes to operating motors. They often have a specific temperature range at which they should be run. Motors produce heat when running, therefore fully enclosed areas with no air circulation may cause motors to overheat.

Certain motors will only draw the amount of current needed to perform a move or hold position. These motors tend to run cooler as they are not constantly drawing large amounts of current.

Budget
How much are you looking to spend on your motor? Often times, this is the deciding factor. If you can only spend $100, a high-end servo is obviously not the right choice. You should have an idea of how much you are willing to spend and look for a motor accordingly.

Each design is unique and often, one of the factors outlined above will hold more weight in the decision making process. By understanding the motor options available and developing a clear set of project parameters, engineers and machine designers will be able to avoid costly mistakes and ensure that the correct motor is chosen for the job.
www.myostat.ca

Alexa Loiskandl is a sales engineer for Myostat Motion Control Inc. with a B.Eng in Biomedical and Electrical Engineering.

Siemens Canada’s parent company, Siemens AG was founded in Germany 165 years ago, and conducted its first work on the shores of Canada shortly after Confederation, laying one of the first transatlantic telegraph cables between Europe and North America, from Ireland to Halifax, in 1874. The company was chartered federally as the Siemens Company of Canada Limited in Montreal in 1912.

Since then, Siemens Canada was involved in several important Canadian firsts, including the first national telex network in1957; one of the first modern light rail systems in North America in 1975; and the design and installation of the world’s first retractable roof at Toronto’s Rogers Centre (formerly SkyDome) in 1989. Siemens also played a role in some of Canada’s most iconic projects, including lighting areas of Expo’67 in Montreal; illuminating both the CN Tower in 1994 and Niagara Falls in 2007.
www.siemens.ca

While these “unmanned forklifts” help save on labor costs, their utility is somewhat limited. Traditional AGVs only travel set paths demarcated by wires, guide tape or another guidance solution. In addition, they don’t address larger manufacturing issues, such as having to store excess material at the manufacturing line. They can also introduce problems of their own such as dealing with pathway blockages, maintaining power levels and managing traffic congestion.

Enter Grimsby, Ontario-based RMT Robotics and its intelligent AGV called ADAM. Since their introduction in 2005, the robots have been defining a new class of mobile robot, capable of largely autonomous operation. According to Bill Torrens, director of the ADAM Systems Group, RMT’s ADAM robots facilitate a higher level of lean manufacturing.

“ADAM allows companies to deliver the needed quantities of material, when and where they are needed—basic principles of lean manufacturing,” he says. “But, even in 2012, many companies still use manual process for the transportation of raw and work-in-process material between an automated storage and retrieval system and an automated production machine. When you connect these ‘islands of automation,’ you not only reduce labour but, more importantly, you also improve product quality and increase throughput.”

To facilitate this, RMT’s ADAM differs from traditional AGVs in that the cylindrical robots are designed for maximum flexibility. For example, they are fairly small; from floor to deck, the robot stands about 510 mm high and is 1020 mm in diameter, giving it access to most floor aisles and walkways. Constructed largely of aluminium, the units are also relatively light, but can carry up to 300 kg. In addition, individual servo motors power its two drive wheels, giving the unit a 0 turning radius and a maximum speed of 1.5 m/s.

More importantly though, Torrens says, the ADAM robot is a random start/random end unit, capable of finding its own way from any point A to any point B by any route available. When first placed in an unknown location, the ADAM robot uses a technique called “Simultaneous Localization and Mapping” (SLAM) to incrementally build a map of its environment. Once the map is complete, the unit’s laser range finding system, servo encoders and gyroscopic motion sensors allow the robot’s internal industrial computer to compute the unit’s location, “visualize” where it needs to go and determine how best to get there.

Although an optimized route is planned, the robot’s Open Path Navigation feature allows it to recalculate new pathways on the fly if material or personnel block the original route. ADAM units are also self-maintaining in the sense that it monitors its power level and docks with variably-placed recharging stations when the opportunity allows.

Of course, ADAM units rarely work alone; each unit communicates with others through a wireless network to transmit new map information and resolve routing conflicts. While traffic management is distributed between ADAM units, dispatching is centralized and mission-based; operators call for an ADAM unit and assign new destinations via the robot’s onboard controls or through an HMI system. Most recently, the company implemented an interactive text-to-speech or sound file audio component, called ADAM RAP, to help it interact with humans.

“One of the things we’ve found with a vehicle with no fixed path, human beings don’t know what ADAM is doing and why it’s doing it,” he says. “So we created an interactive capability for the vehicle so that, within a human environment,
ADAM could say, ‘Excuse me, you’re standing on my destination. Can you please move aside?’
www.adamrobot.com

CP Rail and the union representing 4,800 workers who have been on strike since Wednesday, confirmed that talks broke off Sunday afternoon with little hope of resumption.

“With the mediator withdrawing and the federal minister releasing the parties this afternoon, the legislative process can now commence,” said Ed Greenberg, a spokesperson for CP Rail.

Labour minister, Lisa Raitt, said she still hoped the parties could agree on a process that would end the strike, but made clear she would not wait long.

Pensions, as well as work rules and fatigue management remained major points of contention in the bargaining process.

Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, which represents workers at CP as well as its chief competitor Canadian National Railway among others, blamed the rail company for the stalled talks.

“Unfortunately, the company negotiated in bad faith despite Minister Raitt’s wishes,” said Doug Finnson, the union’s vice-president.

“Canadian Pacific was hiding behind the federal government since the very beginning of the process.”

But CP Rail said it was only fair that the union agreed to a deal similar to the one the they have in place with CP’s primary competitor, Canadian National.

“The real issue is the reluctance of the Teamsters to agree to pension provisions comparable to those provided to employees represented by the Teamsters at other Canadian railways,” Greenberg said.

“We were simply seeking the same agreement to insure CP can remain competitive.”

Raitt said government officials had been talking with impacted industries, farmers and the mining sector, and the reports are that the strike is “starting to actually affect their operations”.

The minister gave notice of intention to intervene shortly after Wednesday morning’s walkout halted the company’s freight train service across the country, meaning she can table the bill as early as today and strikers can be ordered back to work later in the week.

As she did with two previous labour disputes affecting Air Canada and Canada Post, Raitt cited the damage to Canada’s fragile economic recovery for quickly bringing the strikes to an end. She has estimated that a prolonged strike by CP Rail works could cost the Canadian economy an estimated $540 million a week.

According to some people the economic hits have already started to occur.

“The strike has already had significant economic and long-term reputational effects on the Canada’s Pacific Gateway. Mines, plants and operations down the supply chain are facing shut-downs,” said Port Metro Vancouver CEO Robin Silvester.  “We are disappointed that the two parties have not been able to come to a resolution without intervention from government.  As such, we are calling on the government and Minister Raitt to immediately bring the stoppage to an end by introducing the necessary legislation.”

Others are calling for more over-reaching action from the government. CITA, for example, wants the government to take steps to prevent similar work stoppages from being able to happen in the future.

“The time has come to look at the definition of ‘essential services’ under the Canada Labour Code,” said CITA president Bob Ballantyne. “The current definition that limits it to an ‘immediate threat to public health and safety’ needs to be reviewed and broadened.”

“In a geographically large country like Canada that exports large quantities of natural resource commodities, rail freight is essential to the health of the Canadian economy.”

Both resolvers and optical encoders function as transducers by transforming mechanical motion into electronic information. This information is fed back to electronic devices that control the mechanical motion, providing feedback that closes the control system loop and improves system performance.

A resolver is an electromechanical device with a mechanical design similar to a motor or a small transformer. It contains a rotor with one or two orthogonal primary windings and a stator with two orthogonal secondary windings. AC voltage is applied to the rotor and the voltage induced in each stator winding depends on the position of the shaft.

The voltage in one stator winding is Er Cos theta, where Er is the input voltage and theta is the shaft position, while the voltage in the other stator winding is Er Sin theta. A resolver-to-digital converter (generally mounted in the equipment to which the resolver is connected) compares the two voltages to give a highly accurate value of theta.

The biggest upside to resolvers is their ruggedness. They are resistant to electrical disturbances and, because they have no fine-pitch gratings through which light must pass, they can tolerate dust and dirt that would stop an encoder.

In contrast, an optical encoder uses a scale with a pattern of lines deposited or engraved on its surface. A light source shines on the scale, and the transmitted or reflected light passes through the grating to a photodetector.

Encoders are available with both incremental and absolute outputs. An absolute encoder has as many tracks as it has output bits. An incremental encoder outputs a stream of pulses as the shaft rotates and are specified in pulses per revolution (ppr). Incremental encoders can be optical, using a scale or disk with just one or two rows, or magnetic, using several different technologies.

An incremental encoder does not provide any position information at start-up, but merely keeps track of how far it has moved. The only way to determine the absolute position of an incremental encoder is to set the equipment to a known reference position and then zero the counters.

Unlike a resolver, encoders are intrinsically digital, which means they can interface easily to most modern control systems. However, optical encoders have had a reputation for being fragile. The thin glass disk at the heart of most optical encoders could be broken by excessive shock or misaligned by strong vibration. In addition, their integrated circuits could be damaged by a severe electrical disturbance or they could be obscured by dirt. Over the last decade, encoders gained popularity as the glass disks were replaced with steel and plastic disks and the electronics became more integrated and durable as a result.

Resolvers have also undergone a transformation in the past few years, which affects the way engineers are thinking about them. Advances in electronics manufacturing have lowered the cost of circuits and provide an increase in resolution. In fact, 21 byte resolvers are now available with more than 2 million ppr.

Resolvers are also gaining exposure through their use in automotive and green energy applications that deal with environmental exposure. Compared to optical encoders, resolvers are far more durable in extreme conditions, operate under greater temperature ranges, tolerate higher vibrations and are not as easily degraded by contamination. For these reasons, resolvers excel in modern application positioning feedback for hybrid vehicle electrical mechanical components and solar panel positioning systems.
www.myostat.ca

Mark McCann is the Lead Design Engineer at automation solutions provider, Myostat Motion Control. During his eight years with the company, Mark has worked on hardware, electronic circuit design, software, microcontroller firmware development and windows application programming.

To fill this newly created category, Omron unveiled its Sysmac NJ-Series MAC, a high-end controller that integrates and synchronizes motion, logic and vision in one unit. Like a PLC, the NJ-Series is “hardened” for industrial environments but houses a fanless processor at its core like an Industrial PC.

Comparatively, says Omron commercial engineer for PLCs and IO, Johnston Hall, the NJ-Series MAC is most like an enhanced version of the Programmable Automation Controller (PAC); the MAC handles the same functions but can coordinate motion, logic and vision synchronously and at an exceptionally high speed.

“With a PAC, you add software to a controller for all the different functions, but the different software still has to ‘talk’ to each other and, therefore, aren’t really synchronized,” he says. “With the MAC, the three processes are unified and synchronized; that way there is no time loss.”

According to Omron, the NJ-Series updates motion, network and user application updates in the same scan to ensure synchronicity. In addition, it handles more axes (16, 32 or 64) than typical controllers but its response time remains very fast—1ms for applications up to 32 axes and 2ms for 64 axes.

Part of that speed is due to the NJ-Series’ hardware. The controller runs a 1.66 MHz dual core Intel Atom processor running an embedded real time operating system (RTOS) in non-volatile RAM.

Like its hardware counterpart, Sysmac Studio combines an IDE with configuration, monitoring and simulation.

To communicate less time sensitive data, the Omron’s MAC also “speaks” the popular EtherNet/IP protocol, facilitating remote access; interface with HMIs and SCADA software; and tie the controller into the larger peer-to-peer network.

EtherNet/IP also serves as the communication conduit to the last piece of Omron’s MAC puzzle: Sysmac Studio, the company’s software that serves as an IDE programming environment as well as for configuration, simulation and monitoring. Compliant with the IEC 61131-3 standard, Sysmac Studio supports ladder logic, structured text and function block programming languages. The package also includes a CAM editor for programming of motion profiles and a 3D sequence and motion simulation environment to assist debugging.

“Customers told us they were having trouble integrating the three technologies as well as maintaining machines because there were too many software packages and too many cables,” Hall says. “Now, with the MAC, a user can program, back up and tune from a single point.”
www.omron247.com

Also known as Vector Drive, Field Oriented Control was the answer for one of our clients, an Ontario-based automated food sorting and grading company that needed a system for a very demanding application with a large inertia mismatch. Current feedback and the ability to stop on position, fifteen times per second, were critical to achieving their system requirements. The focus for this application was on a 2-phase, permanent magnet stepper, although the theory can, in general, be applied to all stepper variants.

A typical 2-phase stepper motor has fifty magnetic poles on the rotor. These poles lead to detent torque, or cogging, which cause undesirable effects on motion speed and positioning as the discrete step tends to snap the rotor from one position to another. Stepper motors provide high torque at low speeds; however, torque speed curves do show a significant decrease in torque at higher rotational speeds.

The more expensive AC synchronous motor has four or eight poles, produces a flat torque line that extends to high speeds and has little issue with vibration or resonance. By implementing Field Oriented Control, we can provide an affordable solution that provides both smooth motion at slow speeds and is efficient at high speeds.

A key aspect of Field Oriented Control is that, to maximise torque, every rotor position has an optimal magnitude and direction of the stator net magnetic field. FOC requires current feedback from both phase windings in the stepper as well as accurate position feedback of the rotor. With this data we can calculate the optimum magnetic field magnitude and direction for the given rotor position (see figure 1).

The application of FOC results in more accurate torque control, higher efficiency and the ability to control stator flux direction and magnitude independently. It also produces good transient and steady state control of the motor, all resulting in smooth and accurate motion. Although a current sensor is required, this is easily realized by placing a low resistance resistor in series with the motor phase winding. Reading the potential drop over the resistor indicates the winding current.

In order to achieve their strict requirements, our client had tested 48V motors but were unsatisfied with the result. By implementing Field Oriented Control, we were able to run at 24V, which was important for their machine certification requirements. They were also able to use a NEMA23 frame size motor, which was critical to their machine design in that they were limited to a very small space envelope.

While Field Oriented Control does add some costs to the motor, it will allow for a smaller motor, use less voltage and run cooler—saving time, space and energy.
www.myostat.ca

Mark McCann is the Lead Design Engineer at automation solutions provider, Myostat Motion Control. During his eight years with the company, Mark has worked on hardware, electronic circuit design, software, microcontroller firmware development and windows application programming.

The company said Friday it is transferring all engineering and manufacturing operations to other locations owned by its parent company Rexnord, based Milwaukee, Wisc.

“There are some of the facilities in Magog, Que. that will go to places in the United States, but it is a global consolidation of operations, not the transfer to one place,” said Daniel Nadeau, a spokesman for Fontaine.

Fontaine manufactures gates and other equipment for the water and wastewater markets, while its parent Rexnord also operates a separate division for the parts of motion control devices such as conveyor belts and bucket elevators.

The consolidation is expected to take place over the next three to six months, though Fontaine will continue to operate a sales office in Magog that will maintain the company’s name and staff approximately 20 people.
© 2011 The Canadian Press

As part of the assembly process, we integrated an analog load cell or force sensor, a servo motor and an actuator to push on a target surface for a set amount of time with a precise amount of pressure.

Our challenge was to control the force without any resulting vibration on either the digital or the analog output. In order to meet this objective, Myostat’s engineering team worked through a range of possible solutions.

First, the force feedback sensor was set up to the output digital signal and a logic design force control was employed. While this simple solution allowed us to reach the desired pressure performance, vibration and faults in the force sensor measurements were observed.

Next, inspired by the concept of switching controllers, we implemented a new “two-stage switching on/off logic control” integrated with PI feedback control using the digital output force sensing. The two-stage on/off PI controller was applied with adjustable switching frequencies and amplitudes to optimize the performance. This solution provided a much more robust and precise result than a typical PI feedback control but we were still not completely satisfied with the performance.

Finally, in order to achieve the most robust and precise results, we made the decision to implement Sliding Mode Control using the analog output of the force sensor. While this is a more complex solution, it provides us with the best results and is one of the most promising techniques in Robust Control Systems.

Sliding Mode Control (SMC) is rapidly gaining popularity due to its practical success and fairly straightforward firmware implementation. SMC produces a discontinuous on/off signal that forces the system to slide along the desired system’s behavior. Unlike Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controllers, which are perhaps the most commonly used feedback controller, SMC uses a discrete sliding decision rule in which the system flows through both continuous and discrete modes resulting in a hybrid feedback configuration.

Outlined below is the basic theory behind Sliding Mode Control. For simplicity, we have used a double integrator system for our example:
Where u(t) is the feedback controller.
The sliding decision rule is defined by .
The design parameter ‘m’ is a positive scalar.

Now, by introducing a switch between two controllers as: , a stable and robust closed-loop system is
obtained if: . This condition is guaranteed for .

Figure 1: Illustrates how the point (y, dy/dt) spirals in toward the origin and the SMC (controller u(t)) asymptomatically stabilizes the motion.

Note that this diagram is a visual reference only and is not intended to be an accurate numerical representation
of SMC behavior.

Figure 2: To avoid high frequency chattering of SMC, a saturation function can be employed as depicted in this block diagram of the Sliding Mode Control outlined above.

Discrepancies between actual industrial control systems and the mathematical models employed for controller design are common and deteriorate the performance of the typical PID feedback control systems. These discrepancies may be the result of un-modeled dynamics, variations in system parameters or oversimplification of the models by linearizing complex nonlinear systems and can generate faulty scenarios in which the stability of feedback control systems may be compromised.

Additionally, the lifetime of the hardware components may be reduced resulting in higher maintenance and equipment costs. The art of control engineering is to ensure the stability and high performance levels in practical applications and harsh industrial environments in spite of the large discrepancies and mismatches.

In SMC, the sliding decision rule takes in some measures of the current system behavior and produces a switching feedback controller. In the architecture of SMC, the controller is designed to drive, force and confine the system state to lie within a very small neighborhood of the switching function despite the disturbances and perturbations in harsh industrial environments, modeling discrepancies, and variations in system parameters in practice.

The ease of implementation and short computational and numerical algorithm required in the implementation of SMC in microcontrollers is another advantage of this technique. Sliding Mode Control does not suffer from latency for real time application and is compatible with standard communication protocols such as RS-232, Ethernet/IP, and Modbus. SMC has been successfully applied in a wide range of industrial applications such as robotic systems, automotive, furnace control and aerospace systems.

In modern manufacturing, designers are often asked to push the envelope of quality control and consistency. By thoroughly investigating a series of solutions, rather than settling for a quick fix, it’s possible to meet client expectations and provide processes that are extremely consistent and predictable.
www.myostat.ca

Reza Raoufi is a control engineer at Myostat Motion and holds a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Alberta.

The product makes the impact of security failures to critical industrial processes easy to grasp, the company says, and shows how to secure processes. A typical TSSS demonstration starts by showing how SCADA and Industrial Control Systems operate, using a widely deployed PLC to control production. Next, SCADA specific malware attacks the control system and destroys the process. Finally, the system is secured using technology such as the company’s Tofino Industrial Security Solution.

“As a security consultant, I use the TSSS not only for simple demonstrations of cyber security controls, but also to implement various security strategies in an offline manner,” says Joel Langill, CSO of SCADAhacker.com. “I can then develop corresponding Tofino Security Appliance configuration schemes which can be applied to online production systems. I find it very handy to be able to use the TSSS with a variety of SCADA / HMI applications, and with associated field control equipment like PLCs, RTUs and application servers.”
www.tofinosecurity.com

Problem is, very few providers offer the full package, leaving system integrators to source compatible components and figure out, often by costly trial and error, how to coordinate it all effectively.

If all that sounds like a frustrating and time consuming exercise, you’re not alone. Engineers at Cambridge, Ontario-based system integration powerhouse, ATS Automation, struggled with the same issues. After years of experience gleaned from hundreds of machine builds, they decided to chuck the pieces-and-parts approach and create their own.

Called Cortex, the system is an all-in-one vision device ATS designed in-house and recently began selling to end-users and system integrators. But developing world-class software and hardware is a new and entrepreneurial direction for a company known internationally for its automation services.

Phil Arsenault, director of imaging at ATS Automation Tooling Systems, says the first key step was developing software for its own people that was powerful enough for programmers but simple enough for controls engineers with little vision experience.

“Over many years, ATS developed some sophisticated vision libraries and, around 2003, came to market with SmartVision,” he says. “The decision to do that was to drive away from proprietary hardware and operate in a PC environment. Also, it removes the mysterious, ‘expert required’ piece by creating a software vision tool that is usable by almost anyone.”

The benefit, Arsenault says, is that the system is compatible with virtually any vision sensor capable of connecting to a computer, from high-end GigE cameras down to basic, off-the-shelf web cams.

“The folks who develop our SmartVision software, do it to make their jobs easier since they spend most of their time integrating machines on the shop floor,” he points out. “They aren’t software engineers sitting in an office; they are the guys who actually do the integration. Those same people created our Cortex hardware as well.”

A quick glance at the Cortex hardware makes it clear ATS designed its two systems (the Cortex 812 and Cortex 204) with their fellow system integrators in mind. Measuring 11x11x8.5 inches, the compact devices feature all inputs and outputs on the front face—including Ethernet and USB ports, DVI connector, hardware triggers, power cord, etc.—leaving the option of side- or back-mounting or used as a stand-alone unit.

In addition, both systems feature near identical specs. Internally, they’re powered by Beckhoff’s C6920 dual core processor and come with 2 GB of RAM and 3 USB ports for back up and keyboard hook-up. Internally, the systems run ATS’ SmartVision software for image capture and analysis and Beckhoff’s TwinCat software for internal communication. However, Arsenault says the systems can communicate externally with any Ethernet protocol and PLC maker’s hardware.

Where the two systems diverge is in the number of cameras, lights and triggers they can coordinate. The 812 supports up to eight Power Over Ethernet (POE) cameras, 12 lights and four sourcing and four syncing hardware triggers. For users who don’t need all the ports and power of the 812, the Cortex 204 accommodates two cameras, four lights and four sourcing triggers.

“In developing Cortex, we solved all the problems that had plagued us and slowed us down at integration,” Arsenault says. “When we created this product we didn’t realize we were making something special, but nobody is doing this so we decided to go to market.”

ATS launched its new vision system and services business unit in June 2011 and is currently seeking channel partners to sell the Cortex system and expand upon its direct sales efforts so far.

“When I look across the market, I don’t find instruments like this,” he says. “I’m grateful for that. It gives us the opportunity to grow a new part of ATS’ business and reach customers who we ordinarily wouldn’t have talked to.”
www.atsautomation.com

According to E. Charles H. Sykes, Ph.D., associate professor of chemistry at Tufts and senior author on the paper published online in Nature Nanotechnology, the team plans to submit the Tufts-built electric motor to Guinness World Records.

“There has been significant progress in the construction of molecular motors powered by light and by chemical reactions, but this is the first time that electrically-driven molecular motors have been demonstrated, despite a few theoretical proposals,” Sykes said. “We have been able to show that you can provide electricity to a single molecule and get it to do something that is not just random.”

Sykes and his colleagues were able to control a molecular motor with electricity by using a low-temperature scanning tunneling microscope (LT-STM) that uses electrons instead of light to “see” molecules. The team used the metal tip on the microscope to provide an electrical charge to a butyl methyl sulfide molecule that had been placed on a conductive copper surface. This sulfur-containing molecule had carbon and hydrogen atoms radiating off to form what looked like two arms, with four carbons on one side and one on the other. These carbon chains were free to rotate around the sulfur-copper bond.

The team determined that by controlling the temperature of the molecule they could directly impact its rotation. At temperatures around 5 Kelvin (K) – about minus 450 degrees Fahrenheit (ºF) – the Tuft researchers were able to track the rotations of the motor and analyze the data.

However, the Tufts researchers say further breakthroughs will need to be made before molecular electric motors have a practical application. While the motor spins much faster at higher temperatures, the added speed makes it difficult to measure and, therefore, control its rotation.

“Once we have a better grasp on the temperatures necessary to make these motors function, there could be real-world application in some sensing and medical devices which involve tiny pipes,” said Sykes. “Friction of the fluid against the pipe walls increases at these small scales, and covering the wall with motors could help drive fluids along. Coupling molecular motion with electrical signals could also create miniature gears in nanoscale electrical circuits; these gears could be used in miniature delay lines, which are used in devices like cell phones.”
www.tufts.edu

Among the most serious of the reported flaws is a hardcoded username and password that was embedded or hard-coded in a version of S7-300 PLC model’s firmware. The backdoor, Beresford said, would allow an attacker to gain access to the PLC by Telnet or HTTP and execute commands or reprogram the entire unit.

Another serious vulnerability, called a “replay attack,” allows a hacker to capture commands transmitted between his own PC and Siemens PLC and then replay them to a remote Siemens PLC. Using this method, an attacker could shut down the controller or sabotage the processes the PLC controls.

Potentially affected PLCs in the line include Siemens S7-200, S7-300, S7-400 and S7-1200 PLC models. Siemens officials, who were also present at the conference, said they have issued alerts for the vulnerabilities and will begin sending out patches for some this week while other flaws will take longer to address.

While not a security fault in itself, Beresford said he also found an Easter Egg — a bit of hidden code programmers sometimes include as a sort of private in-joke – in some versions of the Step 7 software that, when run, displays a cartoon animation of dancing monkeys.

Read the full technical write-up at threatpost.com, Wired and CNET.