National Instruments is expanding its motion control offering through a collaboration with Kollmorgen, a provider of motion systems and components for OEMs.
These products include drives, motors, linear positioners, gearheads, cables and accessories. This collaboration makes the design of machinery and equipment easier.
NI provides a variety of motion hardware, all programmed through the National Instruments LabVIEW NI SoftMotion Module and based on the LabVIEW reconfigurable I/O architecture, to help engineers create customised and configurable motion systems integrated with NI’s measurement and control I/O portfolio.
Kollmorgen extends that offering to include servo and stepper technology across a variety of drive and motor product families.
For example, Kollmorgen’s EtherCAT AKD brushless servo drive is integrated directly with NI SoftMotion, empowering machine builders to create high-axis-count servo systems without EtherCAT programming.
These servo systems are inherently synchronised with any other modules in an NI PXI or NI CompactRIO system.
NI also sells the new single-cable AKM motor globally, which combines motor power and feedback signals in one connector, reducing wiring cost and complexity.