EtherCAT controls robot

07 June 2007

ABB robot FlexPicker was presented at the JavaOne Conference in San Francisco, California after being developed by Dr Klas Nilsson and his team at Lund University.

The robot is supported by Sun Microsystems.

It is controlled with EtherCAT drives from a standard PC and the entire EtherCAT master was implemented in standard real-time Java within two months starting from scratch.

Nilsson, said: “The use of EtherCAT directly from real-time Java via the Solaris STREAMS/Data Link Provider Interface works very well and means that the entire EtherCAT master can be implemented in standard real-time Java, which provides maximum portability.”

EtherCAT was said to have been chosen for its outstanding performance and the possibility to implement the master entirely in software.

Martin Rostan, executive director of the EtherCAT Technology Group, said: “EtherCAT is on its way to become the de-facto standard for demanding motion applications in general, and for robotics in particular.


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