Wireless CNC Motion Controller Designed with PSoC

Abstract

Numerical control (NC) technology is a kind of technology combined with electronics, machinery manufacturing, and other interdisciplinary combination of technologies. It is an important part of modern manufacturing. Currently, NC technology is developing towards the open CNC system with extensibility and interchangeability, while the modern electronic technology is developing towards the programmable technology and SoC (System-on-Chip) technology. However, current CNC controller designed with SoC is still in the research stage and not practical yet. In this paper, a practical CNC motion controller is built with modern PSoC (Programmable System-on-Chip) with wireless Ethernet interface. This controller has a high-performance microprocessor, numbers of free configurable analog and digital devices and IO (input/output) interfaces, and many kinds of communication interfaces. Therefore, it has good real-time control functions and communication functions. Experiments for controlling a three joint-axis engraving machine show that the controller can achieve high performance of parallel control of the three joint-axis linear interpolation and two joint-axis circular interpolation, and high performance of the trapezoidal and S-shape speed control. In addition, in order to reduce the impact to the motor and increase the system efficiency, a kind of look-ahead algorithm for velocity control with low time cost is used.