Ferrocontrol develops, manufactures, and distributes automation components and complete automation solutions in the field of drives technology (hardware and software) for the manufacturers of processing machines.
“Our goal was to develop a controller that is easy to configure and maintain, even for complex systems, so that highly automated production processes can be designed efficiently and economically”, Peter Schicker, technical sales department at Ferrocontrol, said. “To meet these requirements, we developed the FPGA-based drive controller E°Darc.” The E°Darc family was introduced first at the SPS IPC Drives 2009.
The medium-sized company located in Herford, Germany, is one of the pioneers in the field of FPGA-based control algorithms for real-time processing in servo drives. The main advantages of this technology are a precise and fast current and position control by massively parallel processing and a more flexible architecture for application specific drive solutions. Ferrocontrol is a subsidiary of Eckelmann, Wiesbaden (Germany). Together, the companies act as a full-service supplier for machine automation worldwide. The product range includes drive and control technology as well as IPC technology and software.
Read the full paper of Dr.-Ing. Andreas Pottharst and the additional interview with Dr.-Ing. Marco Münchhof, first published in the CAN Newsletter magazine, December 2017, p. 42-46.