Drive profiles with netX

Today’s drives need to be able to communicate easily, flexibly and smoothly across machines and systems. Industrial communication controllers with decentralized intelligence and smart sensors that are integrated into systems via Real-Time Ethernet, Industrial Ethernet or fieldbuses make it happen.

In systems with different drive systems, drive profiles ensure that the motion control system can access and control the different drives in a standardized way. Each communication standard has a corresponding drive profile. Profiles such as PROFIdrive, EtherCAT CiA 402, Sercos-over-Ethernet, DS402, CIP Assisted Motion and others have been in use for many years.

Modern drive applications tend to rely on decentralized compact controllers with centralized motion automation. This type of setup places high demands on your communication components:

• Drives with real-time communication capabilities
• Compatibility with different motor types
• Smallest form factor for highly compact solutions
• Easy integration

Utilizing Hilscher’s netX communication controllers in combination with standardized drive profiles makes it easier for you to flexibly integrate your drive solution into different control systems.

PROFIdrive is the standard drive profile used with the PROFIBUS and PROFINET communication systems. PROFIdrive runs as a service in the application layer and ensures that drives, controllers and encoders from different manufacturers can communicate with each other.

With netMOTION, our compact drive solution, you’re able to control PMSM or BLDC motors even at the physical level. By combining the PROFIdrive profile with our netX communication controllers, various parameters and control information for these motors can be shared and used for motion control.

Sample software and corresponding motion projects are available for the netX 90 in our own development environment netX Studio. As a user, you can quickly and easily integrate your controllers or drives into PROFINET systems.