Applications - Industrial Automation

In the industrial environment, the demand for increased efficiency, productivity, quality control and inventory management is practically universal. Thus, the need for more efficient control of equipment such as programmable logic controllers, process control equipment, robots, temperature monitoring systems and weighing equipment is dramatically increasing.

Ethernet is gaining momentum in the industrial automation world, one reason being is that Ethernet is able to simultaneously support multiple fieldbus protocols at high speeds. SND’s products (such as the Powerlink software module running on our operating system HyNetOS) enables manufacturers to take advantage of Ethernet to remotely monitor, manage and control equipment over the network or Internet. This improves efficiency by providing real-time access and control of all types of industrial automation equipment from virtually anywhere. Furthermore, Smart Network Devices offers Real-time Ethernet solutions based on Ethernet Powerlink which enables the user to use cycle times down to 150µS. Smart Network Devices is continually developing its product range and currently under development are the Real-time solutions Ethernet/IP and PROFInet, both planned for release in 2H 2006.

SND also have many device drivers (e.g. CAN interface, TFT controllers, touch panel, CODEC, JPEG, serial and parallel interfaces) for applications such as CAN networks, human machine interface and visualisation, MP3, and security and recognition.

Embedded Solutions

SND’s embedded products include all of the elements needed to quickly make your equipment a fully-functioned part of the network, including a processor, real-time operating system (HyNetOS), a robust TCP/IP stack and web server, optionally WLAN and Bluetooth too. With the immediate availability of these protocols and many drivers customers can easily implement SND’s products in their application, reducing their time to market, reducing costs and increasing revenues. Customers are able to easily and inexpensively add a whole new level of communication, functionality, and intelligence to their entire solution whilste maximizing the investment in existing equipment.

Example Applications:

• Programmable controllers (PLCs)
• Process controllers
• Motor drives
• Power monitoring equipment
• Human-machine interfaces
• Robots
• Proximity Sensors
• Encoders
• Flow meters
• Temperature monitoring equipment
• Scales
• Gas detection devices