ControlPoint Features and Benefits... At a Glance
High Performance
Every motion node and every I/O cluster in the ControlPoint system has a fully dedicated DSP (Digital Signal Processor) to control its operation. This processing horsepower allows for a very high performance architecture. This means, for example, tight integration of motion and I/O, double jerk-limited motion profiles, splines for arbitrary profiles, a Programmable Logic Array (PLA) for deterministic, microsecond-level response to complex, multi-dimensional events without host intervention; motion with sub-millisecond settling time1, and much more.
Low Component Cost and Overall System Cost
ControlPoint is designed exclusively for OEM use. As such, it has been extensively value-engineered to minimize its cost. Furthermore, Teknic does not use distributors or manufacturer's reps, so that middleman cost (typically 20 to 30 percent) has been eliminated. Beyond just having a low price, ControlPoint reduces your cost in other ways: the greatly reduced cabling lowers cable cost and manufacturing cost; being able to add one axis and small amounts of I/O at a time eliminates wasted axes and I/O; and finally, the rapid prototyping capability reduces time-to-market which usually has a huge effect on overall profitability.
Flexible
ControlPoint's open architecture design allows the use of a great variety of machine control components. For motion, ControlPoint uses step and direction as a command protocol, so ControlPoint is compatible with just about every stepper motor drive and digital servo drive on the market.
ControlPoint I/O solutions offer high-density, configurable analog and digital inputs with user-definable thresholds, hysteresis and noise filtering, and high power outputs that require no power relays for handling even high power, inductive loads like vacuum solenoids (up to 12 watts continuous).
High-density packaging and no required break-out boards makes ControlPoint I/O ideal for applications requiring a lot of I/O in limited space. The average cost for fully conditioned and terminated I/O is less than $9 per point.
This versatile I/O allows easy integration with a virtually unlimited array of third-party sensors and actuators with no worries about compatibility between components. The scalable nature of ControlPoint allows you the flexibility to accommodate last-minute design changes without fear of being constrained by your control system. The rich feature set and high performance capabilities means that you have a lot of design headroom and you won't get boxed into a corner.
Ease of Performance
"Ease of Performance" means that your design effort and complexity will be easy relative to your performance needs. Low to moderate performance requirements will be easily met with ControlPoint's simple functions, but there is a rich feature set and sophisticated functionality to make state-of-the-art performance readily achievable.
Software control of rotary and linear servos, steppers, analog and digital I/O, I/O-controlled devices, power control, power distribution, and safety monitoring is all done through one software API (Application Programming Interface) which greatly reduces software complexity and development effort.
Easy and Rapid Prototyping Capability
ControlPoint's RPE (Rapid Prototyping Environment) allows for early concept testing and the reduction of development risk. Electro-mechanical subsystems (typically built early in the design cycle) can easily be tested without requiring extensive software resources. The RPE allows an inexperienced programmer (often a test technician or a mechanical/electrical engineer) to write scripts using drop-down menus of available commands in Visual Basic, and even a non-programmer can run simple motion and I/O tests from the RPE's graphical user interface Control Panel. Scripts can be as simple as a few lines of code looping on a back and forth move, or as sophisticated as the full functional test of a multi- axis subsystem. Much of the code developed in the RPE can be used by software engineers when they begin writing the machine application code. In fact, software engineers use the RPE to great advantage by testing code sections in a fast, non-compiled programming environment and then using them in the compiled code.
Scalable
ControlPoint systems can be as small as one motion node or one I/O node (16 I/O points), or as big as 63 nodes. If you used half the nodes for motion and half for I/O, this would allow for 32 axes of motion and almost 2,500 I/O points. This allows you to use exactly the right amount of control for your design. No more wasted axes or I/O, and no more getting stuck when you need "just one more axis..." ControlPoint will grow with your needs.
Also, the scalability of ControlPoint makes it easy to design machines with optional subsytems without burdening the cost of the base machine.
Reliable
ControlPoint eliminates the massive "hydra" cable harnessing required with a centralized control architecture. The distributed nature of ControlPoint greatly reduces wiring and interconnects, and thereby reduces two of the most unreliable elements in automated machinery. Each node is optically isolated for excellent noise immunity. The result is greatly improved system reliability (and reduced cost). A single software driver with built-in diagnostic and self- recovery features improves reliability even further and makes troubleshooting, when necessary, significantly easier.
1: Typical settling time ≥ 1 msec (assuming mechanical system bandwidth ≥ required move bandwidth)