Sercos presents SoftMaster Demo at SPS IPC Drives in Nuremberg/ Germany

This demo is based on a Sercos® III SoftMaster core, which was developed in cooperation with Bosch Rexroth AG and is being made available as open-source software.

Thanks to the Sercos III SoftMaster, a specific Sercos III master component in the form of an FPGA or an ASIC is not required. Instead, a standard Ethernet controller is used and the Sercos III hardware functions are emulated in host-based driver software. With this implementation approach, adequate real-time behavior is ensured for a large number of applications. If an Ethernet controller with several queues and telegram scheduling (such as Intel i210™) is used, even synchronicities and the highest availabilities in the area of a hardware-based master can be achieved.

Some renowned companies are already carrying out the first projects on the basis of the Sercos III SoftMaster in cooperation with Bosch Rexroth AG. Among others, a packaging machine manufacturer is so enthusiastic about this technology that the company is planning to convert its entire machine program to the technology in time for Interpack 2017.

Unlike with the previously used solution with the Sercos hardware master, with the Sercos SoftMaster the company can now use an industrial PC without special fieldbus hardware and without PCI slots to control the machine. Due to the use of the Sercos SoftMaster in combination with the powerful Intel I210, the CPU load was reduced significantly, while costs and space were also saved. 

In the future, the Sercos SoftMaster will be made available under an open-source software license for general use in the software pool of Sercos International e.V. The license model will be based on that of the Sercos master library CoSeMa (Common Sercos API; sourceforge.net/projects/cosema/), which has already been available as open-source driver software since April 2009 and can be used both for hard-master and SoftMaster implementations.

“With the provision of a Sercos III SoftMaster implementation as an open source, it becomes much, much easier for manufacturers to develop a Sercos III master and at the same time to participate in future improvements and expansions of the software,” says Peter Lutz, Managing Director of Sercos International. “In this way, control systems can be designed more affordably and are more simple and compact in the future. This is a very important criterion - and not just for the Asian market.” 

In addition to the Sercos SoftMaster demo, two further demos as well as a large number of exhibits forming a cross section of the approximately 250 Sercos-capable products will be displayed at the joint  booth of the user organization.