Motion control cards deliver high speed motion trace

The Prodigy motion cards from Performance Motion Devices (PMD), [www.pmdcorp.com] provide real-time, high-speed servo trace capture with 40 KB onboard dual-port memory.

By Control Engineering Staff July 26, 2007

Lincoln, MA—The Prodigy motion cards from Performance Motion Devices (PMD), [www.pmdcorp.com] provide real-time, high-speed servo trace capture with 40 KB onboard dual-port memory. This advanced trace feature allows up to four motion variables to be stored at the same time. Each variable can be either 16 or 32 bits in size. Twenty-eight separate parameters can be selected for trace, such as position, velocity, acceleration, servo lag, and much more. The capture trigger for the trace feature is programmable, and can be based on a variety of conditions, such as motion start or external signal change. The captured data is automatically loaded into an external RAM chip and may be downloaded by the host during capture, or after capture is complete.

Prodigy motion cards from Performance Motion Devices

Designed with PMD’s advanced Magellan motion control IC, the motion cards provide board level, multi-axis motion control for dc brush, brushless dc, step, and microstepping motors. They are available in PCI and PC/104 configurations, and provide 1, 2, 3, or 4 axes of control. In addition to trace capture, Prodigy cards provide advanced motion control features including trajectory generation, servo loop closure, quadrature signal input, motor output signal generation, on-the-fly changes, commutation, and more.

Prodigy-PCI and Prodigy-PC/104 use high density logic circuitry said to provide cost-effective, advanced motion control functions programmed in C/C++ or Visual Basic language. Additional card features include S-curve, trapezoidal, velocity contouring, electronic gearing, and user-generated profile modes. The cards accept input parameters, such as position, velocity, acceleration, and jerk from the host, and generate a corresponding trajectory. Instantaneous on-the-fly changes can be sent by the user, and external signal inputs can be used to program automatic profile changes.

The Prodigy cards provide servo loop rates of up to 50uad filters, incremental and parallel encoder input, 8 general purpose digital inputs and outputs, and 8 10-bit general purpose analog inputs.

—Edited by C.G. Masi , senior editor