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Discover Mechatronics-Based Motion System Design with NI LabVIEW and SolidWorksPublish Date: Feb 15, 2012

Overview

Intense global competition is putting pressure on machine builders to deliver machines with higher throughput, reduced operatingcost, and more features. But it is not only about improving productivity. Rising energy costs and increasing environmentalawareness are causing engineers to focus on designs that increase efficiency and lower energy consumption. Therefore, todaysmachine builders have switched from designing single-purpose machines to creating flexible and highly effective multipurposemachines by adopting modern control systems and sophisticated algorithms and integrating high-end electronics into theirmechanical machines.

Table of Contents

IntroductionApplying Virtual Prototyping to Facilitate a Mechatronics Design ApproachConnecting NI LabVIEW to SolidWorksBest-In-Class Machine Designers Use Virtual Prototyping ToolsAdditional Resources

1. Introduction

The trend toward effective multipurpose machines dramatically increases design complexity and forces different design groups towork together more closely. In the design of a modern machine, every decision has a ripple effect throughout the design. If themechanical team decides to change the material and, therefore, the weight of a mechanical component, this change has animpact on the motor sizing or sometimes even on the type of motor needed to efficiently operate the machine. Improving teamcommunication and collaboration between mechanical, electrical, and control engineers is crucial, and tools that offer seamlessintegration and help them share data and information throughout all phases of the development cycle enable effectivecollaboration. 2. Applying Virtual Prototyping to Facilitate a Mechatronics Design Approach

Mechatronics represents an industry-wide effort to improve the design process of modern machines by integrating the bestavailable development practices and technologies to streamline design, prototyping, and deployment. The mechatronicsengineering discipline is the synergistic combination of mechanical engineering, electronics, control engineering, and computers,all integrated through the design process. One technology used in the mechatronics approach is virtual prototyping, also known asdigital prototyping. With this technology designers, engineers, manufacturing, and sales and marketing teams virtually explore acomplete product before it is built. You can use virtual prototyping to design, optimize, validate, and visualize your products andevaluate different design concepts before incurring the cost of physical prototypes.Virtual prototyping extends far beyond creating 3D CAD models. It gives you a way to assess the operation of moving parts,determine whether the product will fail, and see how the various product components interact with subsystems. By digitallysimulating and validating the real-world performance of a product design, you can significantly reduce the number of physicalprototypes.You also can use virtual prototyping to develop highly efficient systems in which motor and actuator size are perfectly matchedwith the requirements of the mechanical structure. While most motor vendors offer tools for choosing a motor that fits a specificneed, the information those tools require is difficult to determine. The mathematical formulas describing a dynamic system areanything but easy. In the past, engineers often chose motors based on limited information and over-engineered the motors byadding security margins. With virtual prototyping tools, you can simulate the dynamic behavior of the whole system, including themotors and the control algorithms, in advance and collect all the necessary information to select the right motors. In addition, youcan reuse most of the parameters required to perform the simulation from other development steps and merge them from differentdesign tools. 3. Connecting NI LabVIEW to SolidWorks

By combining SolidWorks motion analysis capabilities with the National Instruments LabVIEW 2009 NI SoftMotion Module andusing the motion control programming functions to drive the simulation within SolidWorks, you can create realistic simulations ofmotion control systems.To connect those two design tools, you can use the NI LabVIEW project to add an existing SolidWorks 3D CAD model to theproject tree. This automatically populates the motors and sensors defined within the model. By right-clicking the My Computeritem in the LabVIEW windowand selecting , you can easily connect to your models.Project Explorer NewSolidWorks ModelLabVIEW then pulls all the information from the model and shows available motors and sensors.To simulate using the SolidWorks motors included in the model, you need to associate the motors with NI SoftMotion axes. Theseaxes are used when creating motion profiles with the NI SoftMotion function blocks. Right-click the item and select My Computer

from the shortcut menu to open the dialog box and add an axis for each availableNewNI SoftMotion Axis Axis Manager

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from the shortcut menu to open the dialog box and add an axis for each availableNewNI SoftMotion Axis Axis ManagerSolidWorks motor in the simulation.

Figure 1. LabVIEW Project with SolidWorks Model, Configured Motion Axes, and a Coordinate SpaceIn addition, you can group NI SoftMotion axes into coordinate spaces to perform coordinated moves using multiple axessimultaneously. Use the coordinate spaces as inputs to your motion applications when performing coordinate moves. To create acoordinate space, right-click on the item and select to add a coordinateMy Computer NewNI SoftMotion Coordinate Spacespace. In the dialog box that appears, you can select the axes you want to include within the coordinate space.Assume that each axis associated with a SolidWorks motor is a servo motor. Because the axes are not associated with actualhardware, you need to perform only minimal configuration to get started. To configure an axis, open the Axis Configurationdialog box by right-clicking the axis you want to configure and selecting . The dialog box providesProperties Axis Configurationa graphical configuration interface for axis settings.

Figure 2. LabVIEW NI SoftMotion provides a graphical configuration dialog for the axes and coordinate spaces.After finalizing your configuration, you can use the high-level motion functions in the LabVIEW NI SoftMotion Module to developyour move profiles ranging from single-axis to complex coordinated motion. Find the NI SoftMotion function blocks on the NI

palette. Using the NI SoftMotion function blocks, you can perform straight-line moves, arc moves,SoftMotionFunction Blockscontoured moves, gearing, and camming operations as well as read status and data information.

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Figure 3. LabVIEW VI Using LabVIEW NI SoftMotion Function Blocks to Perform an Arc Move on the Selected Coordinate SpaceReview the shipping examples that install with NI SoftMotion, which you can find by selecting . TheHelpFind Examplesexamples located at provide not only LabVIEW exampleToolkits and ModulesMotion ControlNI SoftMotionMechatronicsVIs for typical motion profiles but are also associated with SolidWorks models that are simulation ready.Before you run the application, you need to deploy the project to apply the settings of your axes and coordinate spaces to thesimulation. Select the , SolidWorks assembly, axes, coordinate, and VI items in the Project Explorer window,My Computerright-click, and select from the shortcut menu. LabVIEW deploys the VI and all associated I/O resources and settings theDeployVI uses and switches the NI Scan Engine to Active mode. The NI Scan Engine is used under the hood for trajectory generationand communication with SolidWorks.To make sure that the NI Scan Engine is running or to update settings within the SolidWorks environment later on, you can alsomanually switch from Configuration mode to Active mode or vice versa by selecting UtilitiesScan Engine ModeSwitch to

and .Active UtilitiesScan Engine ModeSwitch to ConfigurationYou start the simulation by running the LabVIEW VI. LabVIEW generates real-world motion trajectories based on your motionprofile, and SolidWorks performs the simulation. While the simulation is running, the 3D CAD model performs the motion. Duringrun time, you cannot conduct real-time visualization because of the intense nature of the simulation calculations on the SolidWorksside. The simulation is correct with respect to simulation time, but it appears to move slower than actual hardware duringcalculations. You can play back the simulation in SolidWorks to view the calculated simulation in real-time speed and verify thespeed of the assembly in reality. In addition, you can use the SolidWorks features to visualize and analyze your application orsend data back to LabVIEW for further analysis.With virtual prototyping tools, you can create a realistic simulation of the machine for a variety of design analysis purposesincluding the following: Visualize realistic machine operation Estimate machine cycle time performance Perform accurate force/torque requirements analysis Design and validate motion control programming and detect collisions Optimize the design before building a physical prototype Identify design issues across mechanical/electrical boundariesBy using SolidWorks and LabVIEW, you can simulate mechanical dynamics, including mass and friction effects, cycle times, andindividual component performance, before specifying a single physical part. Integrating motion simulation with CAD simplifies thedesign because the simulation uses information that already exists in the CAD model, such as assembly mates, couplings, andmaterial mass properties.Finally, you can easily deploy the motion application you developed and validated using the 3D CAD model to embedded motioncontrol platforms such as NI CompactRIO hardware. Using the new NI 951x C Series drive interface modules, you can easilyapply the algorithms to a physical prototype or the final machine through the direct connectivity from C Series modules tohundreds of stepper and servo drives and motors. Because of this, you can reuse the code developed and tested within thesimulation and connect it to physical I/O and motors. 4. Best-In-Class Machine Designers Use Virtual Prototyping Tools

An independent study by the Aberdeen Group shows that by using a mechatronics approach and virtual prototyping tools,best-in-class machine design companies exchange more iterations on simulation for fewer physical prototypes and test cycles andreduce development time by 12 to 40 days. Through simulation, those companies collect large amounts of information in earlydesign phases, which helps them improve their designs, identify risks, and optimize the efficiency of their final machines.

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5. Additional Resources

What is LabVIEW for Measuring and Controlling Industrial SystemsGetting Started with NI SoftMotion for SolidWorksPurchase the LabVIEW 2009 NI SoftMotion Module