Choosing a CANbus Industrial Controller Wisely

Ulrich Luetke Entrup (Janz Automation Systems GmbH) Alan Lowne (Saelig Co. Inc.) An industrial PC can cost much more than a consumer equivalent. Here are some reasons why this extra expense is justified.

Choosing the right hardware platform for industrial and control applications is not a trivial task. Machine designs need to incorporate integrated hardware and software, with minimum development time, be highly reliable, powerful and flexible, and easy to maintain and upgrade. In addition to all that, product managers insist on low manufacturing cost. But up-front purchase price is certainly not the best arbiter of a wise decision. Applications have become increasingly complex and demand such features as high-speed control, complex motion handling, special analog I/O, fast HMI development, and more. Hence, choosing a product and, importantly, its supplier for machine automation and control presents innumerable options from suppliers around the world offering powerful and flexible industrial PCs. These units typically cost significantly more than consumer devices, but using a cheap product today may mean expensive problems later. Field servicing is always many times more costly than producing robust, reliable devices that apparently seem more expensive initially. There are also important technical considerations which make cheaper off-the-shelf solutions a most unwise choice. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Many equipment purchasers (and their supervisors) fail to understand the concept of TCO, and only look at the up-front cost of acquisition in making their decision. In reality, TCO is infinitely more relevant to the decision process. Total Cost of Operation (TCO) as a monetary estimate helps managers evaluate direct and indirect costs related to the design-in decision. Looking at it the TCO way, the magnitude of an initial price can be offset by the ensuing maintenance cost savings realized over the equipments life. This will almost always justify a higher initial outlay for more reliable equipment. Supplier choice So the first choice to be made will probably be selecting a manufacturer whose products offer longevity (including longterm availability) and reliability. A worthy industrial PC manufacturer will be careful to have infrequent component changes and to hold full, traceable historical information on those changes, informing customers whenever these occur and guaranteeing their transparency, i.e. with no effect on the product operation or specification. This is a very different scenario to cheaper PCs, where component and design change is frequent and product life is measured in months and not years. Designers of quality industrial PCs are careful to consider EMC/EMI/ESD requirements. The IPC must not interfere with electronics elsewhere on the machine, but equally it should be immune to any radiated interference from the other electrical controls and environments. It should also function and survive severe static charges. Exact standards requirements depend on the area in the world that the equipment is to be sold. Equipment that is to be marketed in the United States must at least meet the emissions standards of FCC 47 CFR Part 15-2001 (Class A). An ideal IPC manufacturer should have a respected reputation and should become almost a team-member in the product design cycle. Therefore, selecting a supplier who can customize a PC to suit individual application requirements, even to the trade dress of the product, may be vital. A competent supplier should offer 100% test and burn-in, and also be able to pre-load any required application software so that product assembly is simplified. The supplier should be able to provide keyboards than can be customized to suit the alpha/numeric standards worldwide, or to add features like emergency stop switches. Add to that the ability to operate with a wide range of input voltages around the world and power that may be subject to brown-outs. A good IPC partner will have an in-depth appreciation of the customers

hardware and software specifications, anticipating situations that the customer may not have considered. IPC service and support personnel should be able to offer one-stop knowledgeable advice. Robustness is another consideration in ensuring long term product reliability. Strategies such as eliminating moving parts like fans and hard-drives, using low-power design techniques and solid state memory, can make service costs all but disappear for the controller portion of the design at least, and will improve operation in situations subject to vibration. Low-power designs allow reliable cooling that is completely passive. For IPCs mounted to the outside of a machine, an IP65-rated enclosure may be necessary - even for keyboards. The machine may have to run in extreme hot and cold conditions typical industrial controllers will operate at ambient temperatures from 0 to 50C, with humidity up to 90% and at altitudes of up to 3000m above sea level. Mounting options might require DINrail accommodation, remote, inaccessible positioning, or weatherproof installation. CAN do CAN protocols are becoming standard for under-the-hood connectivity in cars, trucks, and off-road vehicles, as well as medical instruments and production lines. CANbus runs real-time critical functions with high transmission reliability - its multi-master hierarchy, sophisticated error detection and retransmission techniques also provide a high level of data integrity, which is crucial to many applications. CANbus can often help to facilitate diagnostic checks using a laptop computer even remotely over a dial-up phone line or Internet connection. Service can thereby be dramatically simplified. When considering CANbus environments, it is important to select a supplier that is totally familiar with this communication protocol, preferably a member of the CANbus trade organization CANbus in Automation. For a complete listing of all CAN manufacturers see www.can-cia.org. The advantages of CANbus compared to other network solutions are based on its robustness and its price/performance ratio. The highest baud rate currently supported is 1Mbit/s, and modern CAN interfaces have hardware filtering and buffering features that help with the task of ignoring unwanted communication and buffering back-to-back messages. Choosing a CANbus product supplier familiar with high-level protocols such as CANopen helps enormously during system integration considerations. A low-cost approach is to use cheap CANbus adapters or dongles that fit into USB ports, but the danger of that approach is that these offer much reduced CANbus system performance. MTBF calculations consider numbers of nodes and connectors, so this approach will harm the MTBF figure. Ideally, a CANbus PC should have the CANbus ports built-in using intelligent CANbus ICs like the Philips SJA 1000, which handles the CANbus protocol itself without burdening the CPU. Integrated opto-isolation of the CANbus port is also worth specifying to eliminate ground loops. PC specs Most engineers are familiar with the selection process for a home PC (speed, memory, I/O devices, etc.) But for an industrial PC, network concerns, remote access, operator interface (custom keyboards and operator panels or touchpanel display), provision for future expansion such as extra PCI slots, etc. all need to be well thought-out. Network connections in addition to CANbus can include RS232/422/485, IrDA, Bluetooth, USB2.0 (USB3.0 is almost here), WiFi or other wireless connections, in addition to various display options, which might include multiple displays or rugged touch-screens. One of the first decisions that must be made is selecting the optimum operating system software. Is Linux appropriate, or must the system handle the various Windows flavors? Some applications require instant-on with no boot-up time. For easy operator interface customers may need a package like CoDeSys Soft PLC Runtime Environment which can offer simplified external peripheral access and display. The IPC manufacturer should be well-versed in these packages too. Using an operating system like Windows CE or Linux offers notably fewer possibilities for malicious attacks from viruses or Trojans. Local operating systems can be reduced to bare bones, which also reduces boot-up time. PCs can

sometimes be switched off inadvertently, or damaged by power failures. Systems can easily be administered and updated via a LAN connection even operating kernels can be completely changed via LAN in a running system.

Welcome to the real world Lets look at some real-world applications that used the above design decision criteria. Some company names are not disclosed due to confidentiality considerations. Customized Car Display Unit An off-road vehicle manufacturer wanted to develop a dash-board-mounted CANbus control unit suitable for rugged mobile applications. This implied that no rotating components were allowed! Vital real-time driver information, such as engine speed, road speed, tire pressure, etc. was to be conveniently displayed for the operator. To accomplish this, many practical design considerations had to be considered: vibration resistance, extended temperature range operation, daylight display visibility, dimmable display, fast boot-time, a smart power supply to protect the vehicle battery, water-resistant and dust-proof housing and connectors, compact dimensions. The vehicle manufacturer searched for a competent partner for this design and selected Janz Automationssysteme AG because of its reputation as a manufacturer of CANbus control systems, but also a company that could guarantee product sustainability for at least five years, while offering centralized expertise for hardware and software. The solution was based on an extended temperature range Janz CANmidiBOX emPCA400, combined with a 5.7" TFT LCD display. A custom IP65 housing was designed, with suitable connectors for CANbus and other I/O connections. Modifications were needed in order to withstand vibration. All selected components had to have a working temperature specification of -30C up to +70C. The display was to be readable in daylight as well as at night, so brightness was designed to be autoadjusted via a CANbus-linked ambient sensor. Since the control unit uses a conventional operating system, some fixed boot time is inevitable, but this was minimized by system optimization and by modifying the power supply. The finished display unit was able to boot and work almost immediately on starting the vehicle. By connecting the display unit directly to the vehicle data bus, different applications are possible for the finished unit, such as: periodic data-logging in internal NV-RAM, navigation assistance, reversing camera display, additional driving sensor display or multimedia applications. Happy landings! Mannheim-based Lucebit GmbH is a market leader for well-designed, extremely reliable airport navigation lighting equipment. In these applications, they demand a lengthy warranty (as much as 10 years) and they searched diligently for a reliable partner with a high level of CANbus controller expertise. Ultimately, Lucebit chose Janz Automationssysteme AG for its development competence, CANbus expertise, and the ability to guarantee product lifetime availability. Together, Janz and Lucebit made a decision to make a jointly-developed custom controller system based on a 1.0GHz Intel Celeron M ULV with fast I/O capabilities. Featuring the usual industrial controller interfaces (3 x Gigabyte-Ethernet ports, 4 x USB2.0 ports, 2 x serial interfaces and 1 x DVI-I-Interface), CANopen and several

analog and digital I/Os have been added to provide a perfect custom solution. This control PC works with Linux well as all Windows operating systems. To allow simple integration in new as well as existing installations, the dimensions of this controller had to be compact. Easy unit serviceability was also very important, so connections were provided above and below the system. Status-LEDs and a text-based status line display were located on the front of the unit.

Touch Panel CoDeSys System for Data Entry Hermann Automationstechnik GmbH manufactures customized special purpose automation equipment and industrial robots. Since the companys foundation more than 250 systems have been delivered to customers in the automobile industry, machine building, and suppliers to the automobile industry, as well as cosmetics industry customers. Hermann Automationstechnik GmbH sought a partner to rely on for the long-term and chose Janz Automationssysteme AG because they could offer competent support from their development department, a constant contact person, as well as giving quick advice to technical questions during hardware and software development. Janz also offered full support for CoDeSys, and a specially customized variation was created for Hermann in order to control the hardware that is not supported by CodeSys. Janz CANdisplayBOX-M12 panel system was selected as the platform of choice, which consists of an emVIEW touch screen display and an embedded PC (emPC-A400), which provides the plant user with the optimum usability and information presentation. CANdisplayBOX-M12 (see picture) is equipped with a 12.1 SVGA touch-screen LCD-Display and comes standard with two CAN interfaces to integrate simply with existing networks. Additional interfaces needed were two 10/100 MBit/s Ethernet ports, USB and VGA and Compact Flash memory. The systems also have an extensive operation system support from Windows CE to Linux.

Oil industry loading applications Mess- und Frdertechnik (M+F, www.mfx-systems.de) is a leading system provider for many aspects of oil product handling: truck, barge/ship and rail car loading, blending and additive injection, aircraft refuelling, pipeline metering, and barrel filling. M+F is a leading supplier of On-Truck Computers. Refueller and Dispenser vehicles are fitted with latest technology for monitoring of fuelling processes - data logging, as well as data communication via WLAN. This is built in to the cab of the Refueller vehicle and shows all relevant data, allowing operator input via touchscreen. The IPC has to meet some tough requirements: o In-vehicle performance must be reliable, despite years of operation in a vibrating environment. o Since the PC is in an enclosed housing, power consumption must be low to avoid overheating issues. o The computer has to work without problem at -20 degrees Centigrade. o CANbus and touch-screen are required. o The units have to have long-term availability in order to be certified for installation. o A short computer boot-up is required when starting the vehicle.

The supplier selection decision to use a Janz system was made due to Janz experience with CANbus technology for many years, excellent support for customization of existing software already used in M + F systems, the fact that service and support for hardware and software could be offered from a single source, and that customization of hardware and software could be accomplished without problems. A Janz CANdisplayBOX-M8 was selected as a compact combined CPU/display unit for communicating via CANbus with the fueling system, the display and the user, as well as via WLAN with the main computer. Placing the computer in the vehicle enabled it to clearly show relevant data and alarms, indicating adjustments that may be required, and allowing information to be saved or sent in real time via radio to central control system. Fuelling orders and other relevant information can also be transmitted directly to the vehicle. The Janz CANdisplayBOX-M8 (see figure) is fitted with an 8.4 SVGA LCD display and touch-screen. It offers low power consumption with a 400 MHz CPU and up to 128 MB memory.

Agricultural applications The demands of grain handling, food processing, and automatic feed control are very varied and extremely demanding. Exact dispensing of feed formulations is essential for the safe feeding of domestic animals. Th. Buschhoff GmbH & Co. is a company that has over 125 years of tradition as a world-leading supplier of stationary and mobile feed mixing equipment. Progressive customer requirements and the latest technology in food processing require precision, reliable control technology in this state-ofthe-art mixing equipment. Buschoff searched for a competent manufacturer of control systems with an excellent performance record, but also a company with product sustainability and in-house expertise. They selected Janz and have been working as partners for a number of years now. At the recent Hannover agricultural machinery trade fair Agritechnica 2009, Buschhoff showed its newest mobile feed mixing equipment TOURMIX, which features a Janz-sourced computer system communicating with two displays installed in the vehicle. One 12.1" touchscreen display is installed in the cab close to the driver to allow easy parameter setting at customer sites. From here, all control, service, and maintenance work can be performed for the entire mixer. This information is also registered at the rear of the truck on an additional display, which makes the equipment extremely user-friendly. Buschoffs top quality mobile equipment for concentrated feed mixing uses Janz controllers (CANflexiBOXC2D and emVIEW-12T/D) Great care was taken in selecting and mounting the correct display with an anti-reflective coating to enhance readability even in bright sunlight. CoDeSys a Soft PLC programming tool (IEC 61131-3) was selected as the most convenient user interface, since was shown to be ideal in similar applications, presenting different types of information on the two monitors.

Conclusions Making the right hardware platform choice for industrial and control applications needs careful evaluation in selecting a reliable, experienced supplier first, who can offer the teamwork and can-do attitude as a partner. The decision may ultimately also require some education of managers and customers with regard to Total Cost of Ownership. Machine designers should consider the complete product life cycle to avoid future headaches. Then you will have made a wise controller choice!