STIWA is one of the leading suppliers in high-performance assembly automation: a new milestone has been set with a flexible transport system based on EtherCAT.
The ETG booth at the recent Industrial Automation Show in Shanghai was well attended: at the same time the fairground also hosted a machine tool show, where EtherCAT is making good progress, especially among the Chinese CNC vendors.
EtherCAT Based
High-Performance Laser Welding Plant The core competence of the Austrian STIWA Group is product and assembly automation. The organisation takes advantage of EtherCAT in many projects, as in the case of the high-performance laserwelding machine for manufacturing gearbox components used in the automotive industr y. The backbone of the plant is a fast, intelligent transport system, which is a proprietary development by the organisation. It is tailor-made for high-performance assembly and uses all the advantages o f E t h e r C AT c o m p o n e n t s . 20  industrial automation asia | Dec 2011/Jan 2010/Jan 2012 2011
In conventional assembly plants, the work piece carriers are cycled through the plant by means of friction belts. The attainable speeds are usually insufficient for high-performance manufacturing. In addition to the units that are necessary for stopping and positioning, a code reader must also be used to ensure that the correct work piece carrier is processed. Added Value Integrated In The System The organisation has successfully implemented the transport of parts in its assembly plant using
a servomotor and toothed belt as an NC axis, which allows very precise positioning of the work piece carriers. Transport speeds of up to almost 3 m/s are possible with a total weight of up to 10 kg. Beyond that, the trick lies in the identification of the work piece carriers. Using just a simple proximity switch, a laser-cut code plate on the underside of the carrier is scanned and recorded via high speed EtherCAT I/O from Beckhoff Automation. By means of the EtherCAT timestamp function, which works with resolutions in the