Confirmations and new products
High-performance automation technologies: Beckhoff Automation brings to SPS Italia interesting product updates and system integrations. They are presented here by Elena Briganti, Marketing & Communication Manager of the company.
M. Costanza Candi
Buoyed by the positive economic results achieved in 2022 (global turnover at 1.515 billion euro, +28% on 2021), and with high expectations of two-figure growth for the current year, Beckhoff Automation once more presented pioneering solutions at the trade fair. They are systems developed with «significant investments in R&D, the segment in which the company allocates around 80 million euros a year, pushing the limits of performance ever forward», points out Elena Briganti, who describes to us the developments on show.
Simplifying automation
«MX System, which introduces the concept of automation without an electric board with IP67-certified and PC-based devices, is completely new, making it possible to increase efficiency thanks to an extraordinary reduction in dimensions and cabling, and a significant simplification of complex engineering».
The system architecture, in fact, composed of a base plate combined with functional modules, offers a modular solution that can be used to resolve a wide range of automation tasks. Sistema MX’s functional models, moreover, integrate single functions, such as line protection for outputs, facilitating design planning and significantly reducing the number of components. The system can also be decentralised on the machine, allowing for savings on design, assembly, installation and maintenance costs. Underpinning MX is the standardisation of the electrical and mechanical interfaces for all the electronic and electromechanics components.
Hardware evolution for vision systems
«With the portfolio of hardware dedicated to vision systems displayed at SPS, Beckhoff intends to offer a complete proposal for industrial vision systems, which expands the TwinCAT Vision software solution, transforming it into a complete system that combines hardware and software».
EtherCAT, on which the system is based, includes video cameras, lenses and illuminators, offering perfect integration in control technology: highly precise synchronisation with all the machine processes, a reduction of design and hardware costs, simplification of the start-up procedures and assistance. TwinCAT Vision also has a complete series of software, with a wide range of algorithms that span from an analysis of colour images, to segmentation, to the analysis of contours and the measurement of objects.
Integration of systems
The installation displayed in the trade fair was also interesting.
«It involves - continues the manager – the integration of two different mechatronic systems, configured for intelligent transport: XPlanar with magnetic levitation, equipped with a vision system and an XTS eXtended Transport System».
The installation aims at demonstrating the combination of two different mechatronic systems with a further integration element, represented by the vision system that inspects the object transported before moving to its final destination.
Sustainability
Beckhoff was also present in SPS’s Sustainable area, with an offer of intrinsically sustainable systems, optimised in terms of energy consumption, dimensions and materials: all perfectly integrated in a company policy which envisages initiatives in the field of smart building, policies for offsetting CO2 emissions and the distribution of apiaries in the numerous Italian and European company sites.
