Customers benefit from an easy-to-operate development environment, high-performance real-time operating system and ready-made software components.

Ninad Deshpande, Head- Marketing, B&R Industrial Automation

The off highway, agriculture, constructions and mobile machinery industries are cost sensitive at the same time technology craving. To keep pace with the technological advancements these industries constantly invest heavily in research and development projects. These projects vary from electronics to mechanics to offer a greater customer experience, performance, safety and much more.

Communication plays a vital role in vehicles and currently these industries are in search of a next generation fieldbus satisfying all industry requirements along with providing an enhanced performance. Faced with unrelenting demands for higher productivity, the agricultural and construction industries are turning to increasingly automated and networked machinery. In EXCON 2017, B&R will be showcasing its products for off-highway, agriculture, constructions and mobile machinery. Various control and distributed I/O channels will be showcased at the expo. These advanced automation solutions for the mobile industry coupled with the next generation networking technology for the mobile market will be the highlight at the B&R booth at EXCON 2017.
“Our X90 control solution provides machine builders with highest degree of performance, scalability and cost competitiveness for such heavy-duty applications,” said Ninad Deshpande, Head- Marketing, B&R Industrial Automation. “B&R solutions allow automation concepts for construction equipment and municipal vehicles as well as for agriculture and forestry applications to be implemented easier than ever. Customers benefit from an easy-to-operate development environment, high-performance real-time operating system and ready-made software components.”

The heart of the X90 mobile control system is a powerful ARM processor and multifunction I/O channels. Basic features include interfaces for CAN, Ethernet and the real-time POWERLINK bus system. With the innovative X90 and I/O solution, B&R continuing to open up new possibilities in mobile automation for mastering mobile control and I/O tasks. The comprehensive set of standardised components is perfect for implementing flexible automation concepts, Deshpande informed.

Over the past few years, a dramatic increase in the number of automation components is being witnessed in mobile machinery. Nearly every vehicle now features multiple ECUs, displays, sensors and other electronics – all of which need to be coordinated. Maintaining such a complex system is costly and time-consuming, and it’s getting harder and harder to implement new developments. To be able to adapt to such complexities, one needs to be able to develop and maintain an entire mobile automation solution – from the controller down to the sensors – using a single engineering tool. This approach hinges on the use of a consistent, real-time capable backbone bus network with sufficient bandwidth. With Automation Studio and mapp Technology, mobile vehicle manufacturers would be relieved of their complex programming tasks and would accelerate their development time. According to Deshpande, B&R’s mapp Technology has an ability to develop software 3 times faster. These modular software blocks simplify the development of new programs and accelerate the development time for new machines and systems by a factor of 3.

Automation Studio is a single tool from B&R for programming the entire systems right from controls, motions to sensor and mapp technology accelerates software development by 67 per cent, he claims. The modular, intelligent components provide thoroughly tested functionality that can be configured graphically. A full-fledged user management or energy monitoring solution is only a few clicks away. An integrated tool allows one to view diagnostics information about all B&R hardware on any device with a web browser or via a remote maintenance connection.

B&R’s automation solutions offer numerous features for diagnostics and service. An integrated tool allows viewing diagnostics information about all hardware on any device with a web browser or via remote maintenance connection. B&R’s Secure Remote Maintenance solution makes it easy for service machines and commercial vehicles anywhere in the world from manufacturing site or on the road. Quick response to unforeseen problems with fast-track commissioning is possible with this solution. Vehicle manufacturers are focusing on predictive maintenance. This enables them to provide better service and lesser downtimes. They also need to access their vehicles remotely for diagnostics data; however, it needs to be done in a secure and safe method. We provide plug and play solutions for predictive maintenance and secure remote diagnostics and maintenance. Such solutions would be running live at our booth in EXCON 2017.

With the features provided by our X90 control and I/O systems coupled with the real time Ethernet POWERLINK, these robust systems are used to automate agriculture, constructions, municipal, forestry, off-highway and other mobile machinery. Apart from such mobile applications, they have direct applications in industries such as batching plants and cement plants where the environment provides the biggest challenge for the machine uptime and quality. “We already have successful implementation with industry leaders in various mobile applications. We want to enable the vehicle manufacturers to enhance the automation systems with our best-in-class products. B&R being renowned as an innovator and a technology leader in the industrial automation, we will bring in all the innovations and expertise to cater to the mobile market,” assures Deshpande.