Performance Motion Devices (Lincoln, MA) released the Magellan™ family of motion control ICs. They provide smooth stop, abrupt stop, and system disable, and are available for DC brush, brushless DC, microstepping, and step motors. A hardware trace buffer can store four performance-related values chosen from over 28 recordable variables. Selectable variables include position servo lag, motor output, servo integral, and commutation angle, among others. Collected data can be analyzed to determine increases in machine wear or vibration, or whether other user-defined or performance-related conditions have occurred. Magellan’s automatic machine monitoring system handles conditions such as motion error, positive and negative limit switches, position breakpoints, and commutation monitoring. Other features include a programmable PID filter with velocity and acceleration feed forward, 32-bit position error, dual biquad filters, and multi-chip synchronization.

Magellan monitors the specified condition once the event settings are programmed, executing the programmed action if and when it occurs. Default values for event-related processing to ensure operation for typical motion systems are provided. Communication to and from the ICs occur via a host microprocessor using an 8- or 16-bit parallel bus, CANbus 2.0B, or asynchronous serial port.