“SCAI” stands for the “Strategic Controller Architecture Initiative” of the Global Research & Platforms division and is the platform solution for software and firmware with integrated PI controllers
This platform is being developed to provide a uniform basis for product development, regardless of the drive technology used. We aim to reduce the current diversity and the effort associated with in-house firmware development, whilst also shortening the time it takes to launch products on the market.
Our customers therefore benefit from standardized operation.
The four main goals of this kind of platform at the highest level are as follows:
1) Modularity
2) Application focus
3) Open / standardized interfaces
4) Simplicity of operation.
The SCAI team, which includes cross-functional Global Platform Development and Product Marketing staff, has been driving the project into its next phase since early 2022.
Milestones in Focus
- In the middle of this year, two prototypes of the E-713 were delivered to the largest E-712 customer. The switch will help us to initiate the replacement of the E-712 in order to reduce its maintenance requirements. We are thus advancing to a new performance class and reinforcing our claim to technological leadership.
- An initial version of our new “PI MikroMove NextGen” software was implemented internally in May 2023. Since then, the software has been delivered to the first beta customers. This is the first time that PI has used a completely browser-based technology. The foundation for a future-proof new platform has been laid by implementing a software framework for jointly using PI and ACS controllers at the same time.
- The initial version of the “Unified Motion Firmware” (UMF) was released by the SCAI team in April 2023. The UMF library is the foundation for all further firmware development at platform level and will continue to be extended to other drive technologies.
- For the external communication of various axes, we rely on a real-time capable Ethernet technology (EtherCAT) for the new controller platform. In order to be able to use it to control as many controllers as possible in the short term, we have developed hardware that converts
the SPI protocol of PI from some of our controllers to EtherCAT. On the one hand, ACS Motion Control Ltd. qualified this interim solution, and, on the other hand, it was verified in compatibility tests with third-party providers. This is a major step towards harmonizing PI and ACS systems.
Current SCAI Team Topics
- A first prototype of a completely PI proprietary EtherCAT solution will follow in the next few months. This consists of an EtherCAT “master” based on the E-713 development and an EtherCAT “slave” that can control a magnetic drive.
- We are currently working on various approaches as to how our controllers can be easily and flexibly adapted to a wide variety of customer applications in the future. Here, the spectrum of application development ranges from simple function developments in the Python programming language to innovative, high-performance scripting languages that are developed together with an external partner.
- In addition, various other software components are being evaluated for the new platform ecosystem. These include graphical programming environments such as Node-RED and industrial tools such as CODESYS and MATLAB. Node-RED was already presented to PI internally on June 19, 2023.
In some cases, we have already been able to discuss our plans with important customers and present the prototypes in this context. In addition to their positive feedback, the customers also talked about their wishes and priorities.
On April 25, 2023, Alexander Frings, Dr. Markus Frietsch, Dr. Julien Mintenbeck, and Dr. Christian Enkrich from the SCAI team, together with Key Account Jörg Peschek, visited our largest customer in Germany to present the project. We have received constructive feedback on our ideas and will continue to coordinate with him as the project progresses.
We invite all colleagues to contribute indirectly to our new platform. If you wish to participate in beta testing or share feedback or ideas, please contact us. You are more than welcome to contribute to this project!
Contact persons:
The SCAI team
- Dr. Julien Mintenbeck, Head of Platform Development Electronics - Global
- Alexander Frings, Professional Product Marketing - Global
- Dr. Markus Frietsch, Engineer Software Platform Management - Global