Success Story: CANopen Master Gateway for drive control of AGVs in semiconductor manufacturing
The challenge: Providing stability and preventing damage
Stability is key when loading and unloading wafers cassettes in semiconductor manufacturing. Damage to silicon wafers due to particles in the air must be prevented at all costs. This is one of the reasons why the use of robots is preferred to humans to ensure quality in this industry. Among other use cases, Hanwha Robotics provides AGVs (automated guided vehicles) to transport wafer cassettes safely through warehouses. During transportation of the cassettes, there should not be any vibration that could damage the delicate material. Also, there should not be a loss of motor control due to communication delays or data loss in any circumstances.
The low-priced solution, Hanwha Robotics had installed previously, was not able to fully meet the manufacturer’s expectations. The protocol converter was a simple gateway and did not provide master functionality. This is why Hanwha Robotics were looking for a gateway with more communication capacity and higher performance standards to fulfill their client’s needs.
The solution: Immediate communication with Hilscher’s netHOST master gateway
Due to reappearing issues, researchers of the AGV development team at Hanwha Robotics started to look into alternatives to the simple gateway they used in the first place. The main issue was severe motor control failure they experienced over and over during the 5-year deployment of the software. The requirements have also developed over this period: functions such as conveyor belt or lift tasks became necessary. So, in April 2023 they reached out to Hilscher Korea and decided on implementing the remote master gateway netHOST (NHST-T100-CO/COM) for CANopen by Hilscher. The use case: controlling the motor drives of the AGVs of Hanwha used in semiconductor manufacturing.
An AGV is a transport vehicle that moves along pre-defined guidelines or guidance devices. These vehicles safely transport items in factories or warehouses where logistics transfers are frequently needed by sending and receiving signals with the other devices.
The use of AGVs provides several advantages:
- Low investment and operation costs
- Automation on intralogistics
- Rapid and accurate movements
Hanwha Robotics offers customized and certified turnkey AGV solutions to increase work efficiency and accuracy:
- Reflector-guided localization
- Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM)
- SLAM-reflector-guided hybrid localization
- Contact/Contactless battery charging and swap
- Battery swap
- AGV control system (traffic control and job assignment)
- Job assignment and control
- Shortest path-finding and traffic prediction algorithm
- Redundancy solutions to ensure system safety and credibility
- Wireless network design
- Network trouble prediction and analysis
- Wi-Fi optimization and spectrum analysis
netHOST at Hanwha Robotics
netHOST from Hilscher fits the specifications they were looking for perfectly:
- Stability of data transportation
- High precision when monitoring communication losses and delays
- Immediate error communication (e.g. disconnection)
- High performance due to high communication capacity
- Use of multiple drives at once
- No more motor control failures and shut-downs
- Network management capabilities
To maximize productivity, safety and reliability in all products and facilities at the customer’s factory line must be ensured. Since dramatic accidents could occur in the warehouses due to heavy weights when using the former gateway solution, Hanwha’s experts were keen on testing the gateway before fully implementing it into their solution. For this netHOST use case, the safety aspect has always been a priority. Testing included:
- Checking the communication cycle times
- Controlling other motor drives via netHOST as CANopen master
- Stopping AGVs immediately when necessary
- Unplugging cables in emergency situations
- Running stable in busy and noisy environments
For now, netHOST from Hilscher mainly acts as a communication converter between the AGV’s driving motor and the main controller. They receive immediate feedback on communication losses or errors, which allows for quicker troubleshooting than in the past and therefore less downtime in general.
To reach their ultimate aim to operate the line without any downtime, Hanwha Robotics was able to use programming examples provided by the Hilscher experts. In their experience debugging with Hilscher’s netHOST was easy as well, since the error code of the remote master gateway is well-structured. For any further inquiries, the AGV development team were able to reach out directly to Hilscher’s technical support via ticket system. As a result, they finished the project within the customer’s deadline. Communication is such an important part of automation and Hanwha Robotics wants to always be prepared. So, their development team is considering to collaborate with Hilscher again for another new project.
About Hanwha Robotics
Hanwha Robotics is developing highly-qualified and reliable technologies of collaborative robots and mobility devices (AGV/AMR) based on advanced design and smart technology cumulated from the machinery and automation industries. Hanwha Robotics is making continuous growth by providing value-added solutions including smart factories.
Their goal is to contribute to the digital transformation, offering convenience and freedom to humans via implementing automation technologies and products that show harmonious collaboration of robots with humans in B2C industries covering service, foodtech, etc.
Visit the Hanwha website
Ethernet LAN CANopen Master
LAN-controlled CANopen Master for the DIN rail
Our solutions enable machines all over the world to communicate autonomously and securely with each other. From communication controllers, PC cards and embedded modules to network analysis and Industry 4.0, we make industrial communication possible. Read more in our success stories.
