Rockwell Automation announces Integrated Motion products

November 12, 2009 — Rockwell Automation announced a portfolio of products and enhancements which help provide high-performance, closed- and open-loop drive control on EtherNet/IP. This portfolio helps increase machine design flexibility, improve system performance, and reduce system cost by providing all the capabilities of Integrated Motion solution for the new Allen Bradley Kinetix 6500 servo drive and enhanced Allen-Bradley PowerFlex 755 AC drive on EtherNet/IP. Rockwell Automation Integrated Motion on EtherNet/IP uses Common Industrial Protocol (CIP) Motion and CIP Sync technology from the Open Device Vendors Association (ODVA). EtherNet/IP is the world’s leading industrial Ethernet, with over 850 product lines from 250 companies available, and over 2 million nodes sold.Using the Rockwell Software RSLogix 5000 software, machine builders can now access all the features and benefits of Integrated Motion for configuring, programming, commissioning and maintaining the Kinetix 6500 and PowerFlex 755 drives on EtherNet/IP. In addition to standardized operation and consistent behavior of the drive products, this new portfolio significantly extends the power range of the Integrated Motion solution and provides support for servo and variable speed AC drives. The EtherNet/IP drive support also eliminates the need for a dedicated motion network and allows high-performance drives, I/O, smart actuators and any other EtherNet/IP-connected device to be supported on a common network.The new Allen-Bradley ControlLogix L73 and ControlLogix L75 programmable automation controllers (PACs) offer users enhanced memory technology, high-performance EtherNet/IP motion control, and redundancy performance improvements. These PACs are ideal for rapidly expanding and information-intensive applications, such as batch processing, where additional memory is needed for recipe management. As part of the Rockwell Automation Integrated Architecture system, the ControlLogix PACs offer users all of the benefits inherent in the company’s popular Logix Control Platform – a common programming environment, common network and common control engine – for maximum ease of use.The new Kinetix 6500 servo drive is a high-performance, modular servo drive with embedded EtherNet/IP. When used with the ControlLogix PAC, the Kinetix 6500 servo drive provides an integrated drive solution on EtherNet/IP. With the addition of the Kinetix 6500 drive, EtherNet/IP can integrate high-performance drive control, I/O, smart actuators and any other EtherNet/IP-connected device, helping to lower system cost, and improve system performance and ease of use. Linear and Device Level Ring (DLR) topologies are fully supported with the embedded switch technology.The PowerFlex 755 AC drive with an embedded Ethernet port is being updated with CIP Motion support. The PowerFlex 755 AC drive can now be configured, programmed, commissioned, and maintained using motion profile and instruction sets within RSLogix 5000 software. This allows integrated motion instructions to be used for coordinated drive control and provides a common solution for PowerFlex 755 AC drives and Kinetix 6500 servo drives. With the addition of the PowerFlex 755 AC drive, Integrated Motion can now be used to control drives from 1 Hp to 350 Hp.For end users and machine builders, the latest version of RSLogix 5000 software includes more than 30 product enhancements, including support for integrated motion on EtherNet/IP, ControlLogix L73 and ControlLogix L75 PACs, Kinetix 6500 servo drives and PowerFlex 755 AC drives, as well as additional controller support and usability, reporting and security features. These new features help simplify programming and configuration, and ease maintenance and troubleshooting of control and information systems.“Adding motion control solutions to our safety, process and discrete control on a common network gives our customers the flexibility of using a large number of tools and devices, provides them with the most contemporary world-class motion control, and opens the door for application innovation,” said Mike Burrows, market development director for Integrated Architecture, Rockwell Automation.“CIP Motion is a technological paradigm shift for systems designers looking to integrate motion with the overall network architecture on a common network,” stated Katherine Voss, executive director, ODVA. “The availability of EtherNet/IP products with CIP Motion from ODVA members exemplifies the innovation that EtherNet/IP has achieved in the application of standard, unmodified Ethernet to a large suite of industrial control applications.”Rockwell Automation, Inc. (NYSE: ROK), the world’s largest company dedicated to industrial automation and information, makes its customers more productive and the world more sustainable. Headquartered in Milwaukee, Wis., Rockwell Automation employs about 19,000 people serving customers in more than 80 countries.

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