Beused On Researching Shaftless Drive System Which Based On Linux Ethercat Central Experiment Platform

Shaftless drive technology, as a new technology, has been widely applied inadvanced mechatronics equipment, especially in printing machinery. This technologyis able to considerably simplify the transmission mechanism of printing machinery,reduce its manufacturing cost as well as improve its transmission precision andflexibility. The application of shaftless drive technology is getting more and morepopular in printing industry.Shaftless drive system is a kind of complex electromechanicalcouplingsystemand hard to develop. Now most printing machines in China were importedoverseas.The technology support project, completed by Beijing University of Technology in2009, has developed the first local-made shaftlessdrvie system based on WINDOWSand SERCOS field bus protocol, and at the same time achieved its application ontabular printing machines. This paper was on the basis of the previous subjectresearch, further discussed fundamentally technological issues such as speedsynchronization, phase synchronization and electroniccam and designed andestablished the hardware and software of the corresponding controller. Furthermore,the paper involved the development of a new experimental platform of shaftless drivesystem based on Linux operating system and EtherCATfield bus protocol, the test ofthe feasibility of the proposal and the adaptability of the systems as well as theimportance of research and development in the new shaftless drive system.In the aspect of the design of the hardware platform, the project selectedPM-PV-D4251embedded mother board which had powerful expansion ability andwas easily programmed. The driver was the product of Copley and could supportEtherCAT field bus interfaces. This full digital EtherCAT field bus driver was calledAccelnet EtherCAT.In the aspect of control system, the control system core was Ether CAT softmaster station for the project. Its advanced field bus communication modes provided apowerful control core for the establishment and expansion of shaftless drive system.The master station was based on Linux operation system. Since Linux system wasopen-source and offered micro-core system, it had better openness, immediacy and security.This project relied on the object-oriented principal and further improved the classlibrary of shaftless drive unit based on the existing research results. The updated classlibrary was successfully applied on a testing shaftless printing system. The main partof the system and user interface used across-platform QT developing tools. The Linuxcore programming technology achieved the synchronized control of each electronicshaft.