Design of multiaxis controller based on Machinekit
XIE Kai, YAN Gangfeng
(College of Electrical Engineer, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China)
 

Abstract: Aiming at the structure, expansibility and realtime problems of traditional multi axis controller, the real time Linux system, Machinekit control software and EtherCAT protocol were studied. The composition of Machinekit control software was introduced, and the reasons for the selection of real time Linux operating system were described. At the same time, the structure, real time and stability of multi axis controller were analyzed. On the premise of ensuring the realtime property and stability of the multi axis controller, a software architecture of multi axis controller based on Xenomai and Machinekit was proposed. And the real time Ethernet protocol (EtherCAT) was applied to the controller. To verify controllers function, three servo axes were used, and Wireshark was used to capture the control message to analyze the realtime performance of the system. The results indicate that the controller based on Machinekit and EtherCAT is able to complete the basic control of multiaxis.
Key words: Machinekit; Xenomai; EtherCAT; multiaxis controller; software design