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DSP Control Group, Inc.
was founded by a group of scientists specializing in various areas
of Motion Control, Medical, Neural Network and Digital Signal Processing. The company has been
intensely involved in the development of DSP-based control chips
and boards serving the medical, defense, general automation and machine
tool markets. The founders of DSPCG carry many years of academic
research and industrial experience in: DSP and ASIC gate array
design, theory of optimum control, and the application of Kalman
filtering in motion systems.
Dr. Sy Meshkat, the company's
president, has many years of experience as a professor of Electrical
Engineering, Director of Advanced Technology at Electrocraft Corporation
and consultant with the DSP division of Texas Instruments. He
has designed and taught Texas Instruments DSP Control Workshops
nationally. Dr. Meshkat has published well over 100 technical
articles and authored three books in various motion control areas.
His recent publication DSPs in Motion Control is being taught
by Texas Instruments DSP Control workshops. The company has worked
with Texas Instrument as a third party since 1989.
Technological Advantage
Drawing on the scientific background of its founders, the company
offers the fastest and most advanced controllers on the market.
This was confirmed by a comprehensive study performed by the Oak
Ridge National Labs/ Martin Marietta on Evaluation of Mx4 in Advanced
Machine Tool Accuracy Compensation. The evaluation was completed
in July of 1994 and the resulting report is available by Oak Ridge
National Labs Y12 Plant. To date, Mx4 is the only multi-DSP controller
on the market with the computation speed about ten times faster
than all competing products. This is the result of using four
DSPs in a hyper-cube hardware architecture. Other unique features
include Kalman filter, programmable Notch for resonance cancellation,
state feedback control, Vector control, programmable motor technology
and PWM frequency. DSPL as a powerful control language is
supported by a compiler for ease of programming and troubleshooting.
The compiler results in an optimized and fast executing code consistent
with the nature of the devices (DSPs) on which it will execute.
Installations and Applications
DSPCG
is proud to announce that only five years after the installation
of the first Mx4, over 40000 multi-axis Mx4s operate in three-shift
operations around the world. Applications served include: military
telescope, radar positioning, machine tools, CNC, robotics, laser
imaging, semiconductor handling, IC wire bonding, packaging, textile,
etc.
Open Architecture
Open architecture means independence from a single source supplier
of "total system". The Mx4 controller is the world's first fully
digital open system that is configurable to all industrial motors,
power switches and sensors. This product allows real-time implementation
of computer control strategies required for servo control of brush-type
DC, brushless DC, AC induction and variable (switched) reluctance
motors. An Mx4 controller can be configured for any motor with
a single command. Furthermore, drive parameters such as Pulse-Width
Modulation (PWM) output frequency, current limit and current gains
are also configurable via real-time commands. The Mx4 controller
interfaces with all commutation and incremental encoder sensors
and allows the user to determine the number of motor magnetic
poles for each axis. High-speed parallel processing allows for a
more compact implementation of the control instructions for multiple
motors. Each Mx4 instruction allows multiple axes to be programmed
with only a single line command. The advantages offered by such
flexibility open the door to a new era for motion computer control. For
the OEM application, this flexibility enables the engineer to
upgrade any part of a subsystem when such an upgrade is economically
feasible. For example, the OEM engineer may select a brushless
DC Motor (a relatively expensive choice) and finish the system
design. Later, the engineer can replace the brushless DC motor
with an AC induction motor without changing the hardware. That
is, motor replacement does not require a change in power stage,
power supply, or control electronics. The corresponding software
change for motor replacement is only one line as follows:
Before:
motor_tech( 2, brushless_dc ); motor 2 is brushless
After:
motor_tech( 2, ac_ind ); motor 2 is ac induction
The flexibility afforded
by the Mx4 speeds up the product development time by allowing
the engineers to make a final economical decision later, when
they learn more about their application needs without major changes
in software or hardware.
Multimedia Tutorials
The interactive multimedia tutorials allow the users of a
DSPCG product to learn about various features of the product and
its programming methods. The tutorials cover hardware architecture,
system connections, DSPL programming and object-oriented programming
using Visual Basic and C++ programming techniques. Multimedia
Manuals In addition, the CD ROM contains Hypertext manuals through
which information may be found per user's preferred method of
categorization. For example, the user may pose a hardware question
by typing in the connector name or the system function in which
that connector is used. Accordingly, the user may find the information
on a desired software feature by specifying the application category,
function category or simply typing the command name itself.
DSP Control Group, Inc.
4445 West 77th Street
Minneapolis, MN 55435
Phone: (952) 831-9556
Fax: (952) 831-4697
info@dspcg.com
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