Success Story: Pneumax Rethinks Communication and Optimizes Production Processes with netX 90

For the Industrial Automation business unit, technological progress necessarily involves communication. "Twenty years ago we were focused on CANopen. Today, with the need to manage large volumes of cyclic data in real time, we need high-performance deterministic protocols," explains Ubbiali.
For this reason, Pneumax has expanded its range to include solutions equipped with Ethernet-based connectivity – EtherCAT, Ethernet/IP, PROFINET and CC-Link IE Field – and has chosen Hilscher's netX technology as its enabling platform.

“Hilscher's choice was made for a matter of flexibility: the multiprotocol support of netX 90 SoC allows us to switch from one standard to another by acting only on the software configuration, without changing the hardware.”

Pneumax was thus able to create a single interface for communication and consequently optimize both its offer and production management, thanks to the development of an automated system that analyzes the specifications of the order, identifies the desired protocol and provides for the programming of the object.
“Beyond meeting the technological requirements we were looking for, supplier selection also involved a careful evaluation of potential gains in production efficiency. With Hilscher, we found strong answers on both fronts,” comments Ubbiali, recalling the process that led to the adoption of Hilscher chips.

Flexibility through standardization

Founded as a company specialized in pneumatics, Pneumax has extended its technological range of action over time, opening up to electric actuation and proportional technology. Three technological solutions that coexist in the company's proposal: each of them responds specifically to different application needs. Thanks to the adoption of the netX 90 platform, integrated on various fronts of the Pneumax range, today they all share a renewed communication capacity.

An example is the PX Series, a modular electronic system for the acquisition and control of pneumatic and electrical components. Compact and flexible, this solution can be used both as a stand-alone unit and integrated into solenoid valve batteries.

Even a traditionally mechanical component such as the proportional valve, used to regulate outgoing air pressure, has benefited from the upgrade, evolving from a previous analogue version to one equipped with Real-Time Ethernet communication.

A third area of application is represented by flow meters, which allow users to detect useful parameters and then correctly direct control activities. These meters are capable of managing numerous parameters – such as instantaneous flow rate, consumption (instantaneous and cumulative), pressure and temperature – and can now also be read remotely, enabling its use for example for diagnostic activities.

Thanks to the new protocols, all these solutions can now be integrated directly into the machine network without the need for expensive and delicate analogue wiring. In the meantime, this simplification reduces latency, enables advanced features, and improves flexibility and efficiency in both design and manufacturing. 

Each of the three products – PX Series, proportional valve and flow meter – is therefore equipped with hardware designed to be standard and natively support different communication protocols. Thanks to the netX 90 platform, it is possible to define the desired protocol via software, without any physical modification, according to the flexible standardization logic that guides development in Pneumax: a few hardware variants, adaptable to multiple application scenarios. 

“For us and for our customers, application flexibility is essential. With our latest products, we wanted to clearly express the concept of ‘Pneumax control’ by integrating the same electronics across different products and application solutions. The goal is to create a true ecosystem that combines the benefits of standardization with those of reconfigurability – and therefore flexibility”, explains Ubbiali.

He further underlines, that “this modular design approach, and the resulting development of scalable and reconfigurable solutions, directly addresses the needs of machine builders, who are increasingly required to manage ever shorter product life cycles”.

The collaboration between Pneumax and Hilscher has been going on for some time, but the adoption of netX 90 was a turning point. "We have been working with Hilscher for well over 10 years," says Ubbiali. "We used to adopt the embedded module netIC 50 from Hilscher, but in 2022 we realized that the collaboration had reached such a scale that motivated the transition to a different type of solution. We therefore decided to make the transition from the module to netX 90 processor." 

The company took the opportunity to make a double leap at the same time, switching to the new generation of Hilscher communication technology. The transition obviously implied an initial commitment, but it offered truly remarkable returns, in many terms – technological, management and economics of production. 

In addition to greater flexibility in terms of protocols, Pneumax has for example grasped the advantages offered by the dual core architecture of netX 90, choosing to use not only the communication part of this device but also to integrate the application itself into the second core of netX 90, also called the application core. "With netX 90, we were able to manage two distinct functions on a single chip, simplifying the entire design. This integration has allowed us to contain dimensions and costs, limiting the risks associated with the management of multiple components and increasing robustness and reliability" concludes Ubbiali. "From a technological point of view, it was not a simple technical update, but a real generational leap."