softmotion module must for circular motion control?

[pradeepl.wpg]

Hi,

We are planning to use two NI 9514 modules for 2-axis motion (2D motion) control which involves Circular Motion. Is it  compulsory to use the NI Softmotion module with NI 9514 for the motion control? Also would like to know, if it is compulsory to use the Softmotion module, then what is the estimated gate usage?

Thanks in advance.

Pradeep.

[Jochen]

Pradeep,

the NI 9514 is meant to be used in scan mode without the need of FPGA programming. The module runs the motion control onboard, so it doesn't use a lot of FPGA resources. NI-SoftMotion in combination with the NI 9514 only requires resources on the RT controller, so the only part that requires significant FPGA resources is the scan engine itself. Depending on the FPGA type the gate usage of the scan engine varies, but a rough estimate is, that it requires about 1 M gates.

As already mentioned, the NI 9514 is meant to be used with the scan engine and NI-SoftMotion. This provides a high-level API (IEC-61131 function blocks), axis coordination, tools for configuring, tuning and testing the axes and so on. There is also a low-level FPGA interface to the NI 9514, but as long as there is not a strong technical reason for progrmaming the module in FPGA mode, I strongly recommend using the NI-SoftMotion approach.

Kind regards,

Jochen Klier

National Instruments

[providev]

Hi Jochen,

My application is also very similar to what Pradeep is trying to do. However, I will also have other IOs such as analog outputs and DIOs. Would I be able to use the remaining FPGA space to run my own FPGA code?

Thank you for your kind help!

Cheers!

sankah2k

[Jochen]

Sanka,

if you need very fast reactions, you can use the FPGA in hybrid mode, so you can run the scan engine and custom FPGA code at the same time. If it's fine for you to read and write your additional I/Os at a rate of some milliseconds, you could use the scan engine for your entire application, avoiding FPGA programming completely, which effectly reduces the complexity of your application significantly.

Jochen