For a quick start into motion control, Hilscher offers a development kit, consisting of a hardware board with accessories, a development environment, and software examples. The NXHX 90-MC board serves evaluation and development purposes, as a reference design and shows how a generic structure of the network interface and motor driver side is possible with the help of the netX 90. Thus, the installed software decides which type of motor, position detection, and application profile is to be used, similar to the various communication protocols based on Real-Time Ethernet.
The standard firmware fits into the integrated Flash memory and consists of a communication protocol and an integrated web server for software updates. Alternatively, the customer can use – with an optional external memory extension – a greatly expanded communication firmware which additionally offers IoT connectivity, (D)TLS support and a dynamic web server. The external host interface (Dual-Port-Memory) allows access to the netX 90, has the same structure as the internal DPM and offers customers a scalable and extendable solution for the use as a network interface.
The NXHX 90-MC board can be operated directly with Hilscher's netX Studio CDT, a free Eclipse-based IDE (Integrated Development Environment) that contains all that is required for configuring, developing, and debugging embedded applications. The software examples of different protocols, e.g. PROFINET IO-Device, EtherCAT Slave, and EtherNet/IP Adapter, contain the communication firmware as loadable firmware (LFW), which only needs to be configured and loaded by the user.
The delivered sample projects with cifX-API for developing application profiles, show how a connection to a controller via the network can be established with a few steps. From the point of view of the motor control, the sample sources for the field-oriented control of a servo motor are included - in this case a PMSM (permanent-magnet synchronous motor) with integrated Hall sensors and optional encoders.