EP0628647A1 - Control device for a spinning frame - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention relates to a control device for a spinning machine, with a central control unit connected via a bus to a plurality of sensors or actuators of the spinning machine, there being an intelligent multi-function module (8) which is connected via the bus (3) to the central control unit which has one or more inputs (IN1 to INn) or outputs (OUT1 to OUTm), at least one input or output of which is connected to a sensor (9, 10) or actuator (11). The intelligent multi-function module (8) serves essentially for the independent processing of the signals from the sensors (9, 10) and for controlling the actuators (11). <IMAGE>

Description

The invention relates to a control device for a spinning machine with the features of the preamble of claim 1.

When controlling a spinning machine, for example a ring spinning machine, complex control tasks have to be mastered and a large number of actuators and sensors have to be controlled in a suitable manner. For example, several hundred work stations often have to be monitored for the occurrence of a thread break during the operation of a spinning machine, the work station in question having to be stopped after the detection of a thread break and the further supply of the material to be processed must be prevented, for example by activating a match stop. At the same time, an operator call must be triggered and / or e.g. an automatic thread attachment device can be controlled in a corresponding manner.

In order to reduce the amount of wiring that is connected to the connection of each individual sensor or actuator of a spinning machine to the central control unit of the machine, DE 38 13 945 A1, for example, proposes that the sensors and actuators of a machine segment be connected to the machine by means of a collecting channel and a data concentrator to connect the central control unit, the data concentrators being connected via a bus system.

A disadvantage of this known control device for a spinning machine, which uses a bus system, however, is that a larger data transfer rate is associated with an enlargement of an existing machine or with an expansion of a standard machine which initially only has the basic functions required, or with additional equipment and units, so that the bus system must be designed from the outset for a corresponding maximum transmission rate if the possibility of this expansion is to be kept open. This leads to an increase in costs, which are not justified if none or not all of the expansion options disclosed are realized.

Furthermore, in the case of a machine enlargement or functional or equipment expansion of a machine, the actuators and sensors to be controlled additionally lead to a considerable additional load on the central control unit. That is, the central control unit must be designed from the outset to process a corresponding amount of data, which must be done in part in real time, which also leads to an increase in the cost of a standard machine, which is not justified in all cases in which this capacity is not is exhausted.

DE 40 26 581 A1, which as such goes the opposite way and, in the case of controlling a large number of similar units, describes a possibility for concentrating the control intelligence in a central control unit, is assumed to be known for controlling a large number of similar individual units in each unit or assign a microprocessor to a group of units that solves the control of the individual units via software. However, the specific type of construction of the entire control system or the processor electronics cannot be found in this document.

DE 39 19 687 A1 also discloses an example of the use of a processor for solving a specific control task in spinning technology, namely the control of the ring bench and the individually driven rollers of a drafting system. However, the basic principle of central control is also used here.

In addition, the use of processor-controlled control modules is known in other specialist areas, the hardware of which, in addition to the software, is also adapted to the specific control and regulation tasks to be mastered, for example a special motor which can be used for industrial robots, and which are connected to a central control unit (for example a literature reference DE-Z Technika 10/1988, pages 17 to 20).

All of the above-mentioned control systems have the disadvantage that, in order to solve additional and / or other control tasks, the hardware at least of parts of the system has to be specially adapted to the new tasks. The expansion of existing machines with additional functions or the development of a control system for a new machine is therefore time-consuming and costly.

The invention is therefore based on the object of providing a control device for a spinning machine which, with little wiring, enables flexible, simple and inexpensive expansion of existing machines, for example the enlargement, equipment or retrofitting of existing machines or standard machines with additional units and / or functions , or can be adapted to a new machine with little effort.

The invention solves this problem with the features of claim 1.

Through the use of a bus that communicates between the central control unit and the sensors and actuators of the spinning machine to be controlled and, optionally, for their power supply serves, and at least one intelligent multi-function module with several inputs and outputs, it is ensured that the control device can be flexibly expanded by additional functions or adapted to other requirements, for example the requirements of another machine. An extension of the existing central control unit with regard to a higher computing power or a modification of the bus, for example the increase of the maximum possible data transmission speed, is practically not necessary for this.

The intelligent multifunctional module has an arithmetic unit and a memory for receiving a control program and one or more inputs or outputs, the type and number of inputs and outputs being selected such that one and the same module is used only by using a different control program for practically every control purpose can be used with a spinning machine.

In a preferred embodiment of the invention, this universally usable intelligent multifunction module is designed such that its control program can be loaded into the program memory of the module by data transfer from the central control unit via the fieldbus of the spinning machine.

In addition, the central control unit can use a special program to enable application-specific programming of a further multifunctional module by the user himself.

In this embodiment of the invention, in a corresponding development, the program of the central control unit, in addition to being freely programmable, can also allow the linking of certain machine-internal states in order to deal with user-specific control tasks.

In another embodiment of the invention, the program for the user-specific programming of the intelligent multifunction module also run on an external data processing system and transferred to the module by inserting a suitably programmed read-only memory (eg a PROM or EPROM) or by data transfer via a special interface of the module.

Further embodiments of the invention result from the subclaims.

Fig. 1

ein Blockschaltbild der erfindungsgemäßen Steuervorrichtung und

Fig. 2

das Blockschaltbild der Multifunktionsbaugruppe in Fig. 1.

The invention is explained below with reference to an embodiment shown in the drawing. Show in the drawing

Fig. 1

a block diagram of the control device according to the invention and

Fig. 2

the block diagram of the multi-function module in Fig. 1st

Fig. 1 shows a block diagram schematically the structure of the control device according to the invention for a spinning machine using the example of a ring spinning machine. For the sake of simplicity, not all control functions of the machine are shown. Rather, the invention is explained using the example of the control of the ring bank of a ring spinning machine.

The control device according to the invention consists of a central control unit 1, which performs at least the higher-level control tasks, such as starting and stopping the machine, and the coordination of the individual partial control tasks, such as the control of the drafting system and the ring bench Ring spinning machine or the control of a thread attachment device. In addition, the central control device can of course also perform individual detailed control tasks, such as triggering an operator call in the event of an error, if necessary.

The central control unit 1 is connected via a bus interface unit 2, which can be part of the central control unit 1, to a bus 3, which is preferably used for the power supply and for data transmission from and to the peripheral units.

Input / output units 4 are used as peripheral units, which serve to control individual actuators and sensors of the ring spinning machine, which preferably have several standardized inputs and outputs, such as Serial interfaces, analog inputs (recording analog sensor signals), digital inputs (detection of digital machine states), counter inputs (frequency measurement, speed measurement), analog outputs (control signal for converters to control the motor speed) or digital outputs (switching outputs, control of stepper motors).

1 shows a first input / output unit 4 'and a second input / output unit 4' ', each of which is connected to the bus 3 by means of a bus connection unit - this can of course be integrated into the input / output units again.

The first input / output unit 4 'is connected via digital inputs to the outputs of a thread break monitor 5 of a spinning station, which for example sets its output from logic zero to logic one when a thread break occurs. To this extent, this sensor signal is preprocessed in the thread break monitor 5.

Furthermore, a plurality of digital switching outputs of the input / output unit 4 'are each connected to a sliver stop device 6, so that when a thread break is reported by a thread break monitor via the input / output unit 4' to the central control unit 1, the latter by means of a corresponding command to the input / output unit 4 'can activate the relevant switching output and the match stop device.

In addition, the central control device 1 will issue a command to stop the relevant spindle drive - in this case a ring spinning machine with a single spindle drive is required - to the input / output unit 4 ″, which is connected via corresponding digital outputs to a controllable switch 7, which interrupts the power supply of the spindle drive in question.

The communication between the central control unit 1 and the input / output units 4 takes place in such a way that the central control unit 1 addresses the relevant input / output unit for data transmission to the input / output units and then outputs an output by transmitting one or more specific commands Input / output unit influenced in the desired manner.

For the sake of less effort, a certain input of an input / output unit 4 is read into the central control unit 1 by using the so-called "serial polling". In this case, one input / output unit after the other is addressed at certain (regular) time intervals and the state, in particular of the inputs of the addressed input / output unit, is read into the central control unit.

The interrupt-controlled data transmission from and to the input / output units is in principle possible. However, this adversely affects the manufacturing costs of the control device. The same applies to data transmission in the sense of Token principle in which not only the central control unit, but also each input / output unit can act as a bus master.

To this extent, the input / output units described above are units of a known type which do not have their own intelligence and essentially only for the distribution of control commands from the central control unit to the corresponding actuators and for the forwarding of sensor signals or machine states to the central control unit serve.

In addition to these input / output units 4 of known type, the control device according to the invention for a spinning machine shown in FIG. 1 additionally has a multifunction module 8 which is connected to the bus 3 via a preferably integrated connection unit 2. This module, like the input / output units 4, has several standardized inputs and outputs.

In the embodiment of the invention shown in FIG. 1, a first input of the multifunction module 8 is connected to a sensor 9 for the speed of the spindles. In the case assumed here of a single spindle drive, but also in the case of a conventional tangential belt drive, this signal can be derived from the voltage supply of the drive motors, in particular from the frequency of the power supply, which is usually carried out by a frequency converter. Thus, by using a Schmitt trigger connected downstream of a one-way rectifier, a digital signal can be generated which is fed to the counter input of the multifunction module and from whose frequency the motor speed can be determined taking into account the number of poles.

A second input of the multi-function module 8 is connected to a sensor 10 for detecting the (absolute) actual value of the ring bench position. This sensor 10 delivers, for example Analog signal that is fed to a corresponding analog input of module 8.

Finally, an output of the multi-function module 8 is connected to the drive 11 of the ring rail. This output can e.g. be designed as an analog output, which controls the speed of the electric motor for the ring bench drive via a corresponding control input of a converter.

To connect the entire control device of the spinning machine to a higher-level data processing system, for example a production control computer, the control device has a connection unit 12 which enables the connection of the machine's internal bus to a remote bus. In practice it may also be necessary to use a remote bus when connecting the actuators and sensors of a long machine to the central unit. In the drawing, however, this case is intended to be encompassed by the schematically illustrated bus 3.

2 schematically shows the structure of the multifunction module 8. The heart of the module, namely an arithmetic unit (CPU = Central Processing Unit), is connected to the bus 3 via a circuit unit 13 for potential isolation and a bus interface unit 2. The disadvantageous influence of potential differences is avoided by the potential separation.

The CPU is connected on the one hand to a preferably battery-buffered memory 14 with random access (RAM) and on the other hand, also again via a circuit unit 13 for electrical isolation with several standardized inputs IN 1 to IN _n and outputs OUT 1 to OUT _m .

A program for essentially independent control of certain functions of the ring spinning machine, such as the control of the ring bank described above, is stored in the memory 14. without data to be transferred between the central control unit 1 and the multifunction module 8. This communication can therefore be limited to the higher-level functions, for example start and stop instructions or the transfer of machine data for statistical evaluation or protocol purposes.

To control the ring bank of the ring spinning machine, the signal from the sensor 9 and the sensor 10 is fed to the multifunction module 8, as described above. From the signal of the sensor 9, the multi-function module uses a corresponding program routine to determine the spindle speed and controls it depending on the ring bench position, i.e. to the signal of the sensor 10, the ring bench drive 11 in accordance with a function stored in the memory 14 in the desired manner.

In this way, regulation of the ring bench movement can also be implemented in the form of a closed digital control loop.

Of course, the multi-function module can not only be used to control the ring bench, but also for a variety of other control tasks, such as to control the system of single spindle drive-matched thread-attaching device, the (individually driven) rollers of a drafting system or an automatic bobbin changing device.

If the memory 14 of the multi-function module 8 is designed as RAM, the control software of the module can also be "booted" by the central control unit 1. Due to the usually large amounts of data and the resulting long transmission time, this process should be limited to cases in which this is unavoidable, e.g. when installing the machine or after a long shutdown. Brief power cuts or a short disconnection of the On the other hand, as mentioned above, power supply should be intercepted by battery backup of the memory.

Of course, the memory 14 of the multifunctional assembly can also be designed as a read-only memory (ROM) or programmable read-only memory (PROM). This makes battery backup unnecessary. A "booting" of the control software is then no longer possible, or can only be achieved by using so-called EEPROMs (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read only Memory).

Furthermore, part of the memory 14 can be reserved for storing certain parameters, e.g. determine the ring bench movement depending on the type of material to be processed. If necessary, these parameters can then either be transferred from the central control unit to the multifunctional assembly or several parameter sets are stored in the memory 14 and the central control unit only transmits the number of the desired parameter set.

By using such an intelligent multifunctional module, on the one hand the load on the bus system is reduced and, on the other hand, the central control unit is not burdened with further control tasks, since time-critical processes in particular can run directly in the multifunctional module 8. This measure also reduces the probability of errors, since it is no longer necessary to exchange all data or signals via the bus between the central control unit and the actuators and sensors.

At the same time, the control device can be easily adapted, for example to a newly developed spinning machine, because the programmable design of the multi-function module and the presence of several standardized inputs and outputs enable the module to handle a wide variety of control tasks. This will also lower it development and production costs, since one and the same assembly can be manufactured in larger quantities and used for different machines and different control tasks.

The new development or change development can therefore essentially be limited to the development of the necessary software for the central control unit and the multifunction module (s).

In a further development of the control device according to the invention, the user-specific adaptation of the spinning machine by the user himself is made possible by the use of a separate multi-function module: For this purpose, the central control unit 1 can provide a software that is especially suitable for this purpose, which allows the user to program a program for the separate multi-function module create. This software preferably also enables the user to access certain internal machine states, such as the position of the ring bench, the spindle speed, etc. The user can thus solve certain control tasks required for him in addition or in another way by acquiring a further multifunction module 8.

However, i.a. the user must be denied access to certain basic functions of the machine for reasons of warranty and product liability.

Tables 1 and 2 below illustrate one way of implementing the program for creating a user-specific control program.

The user of the program is shown, for example, the tables above on a display. The parameters Z₁ to Z₄ contained in Tables 1 and 2 serve as placeholders for certain machine states or conditions, e.g. "Thread break indicator activated", "Fault automatic thread setting device", "Spindle speed> predetermined value". It is possible to only allow the user access to certain internal machine states and conditions, e.g. Define "spindle speed> 10,000" yourself.

By entering a logic rule, for example a logical operator (AND, OR, NOT), in a field of the matrix in Table 1, one or two of the parameters Z₁ to Z₄ can be linked and an output OUT₁ to OUT _m or another flag variable, e.g. Assign M₁ to M₄.

For further linking, the marker variables M₁ to M₄ can then be linked in an analogous manner using Table 2.

After entering the links, the program generates the code for the control program, which is the multifunction module controls the shortcuts / conditions defined by the user.

In the case of the example of purely Boolean links shown in Tables 1 and 2, the following behavior of the multifunction module results from the control program created according to these regulations:
The output OUT₁ of the multifunction module is set according to the linking rule Z₁ AND Z₂ when the machine conditions / conditions Z₁ and Z₂ are met.

The output OUT₂ is set when the flag variables M₁ and M₂ are set (Table 2). The flag variable M₁ is set when the states / conditions Z₂ and Z₃ are met and the flag variable M₂ is set when the states / conditions Z₁ and Z₄ are met. This results in the logical combination rule OUT₂ = (Z₁ AND Z₃) AND (Z₁ AND Z₄).

A maximum of four states / conditions can thus be linked in the manner described above.

Of course, the maximum number of states / conditions to be linked can be increased by increasing the nesting depth, i.e. can be increased by using additional marker variables (to link marker variables).

Not only can Boolean operations be performed, but also any other mathematical relationships, such as the four basic arithmetic operations are used.

The software for creating the customer-specific program for the further multifunctional module can also not only be provided in the central control unit, but can also be designed as separate development software for execution on external data processing systems. In this case The program created for the multi-function module is then transferred to a PROM, EPROM, EEPROM or the like and this is then used in the module. If the memory is in the form of RAM, the program can also be transmitted through a specially created interface of the module or the program can be transmitted via bus 3 from the external data processing system directly or via the detour to central control unit 1 to the multifunctional module.

This possibility of creating a user-specific control program for a spinning machine is not necessarily tied to the use of a multifunction module, although this constellation covers a large part of all applications. Rather, such a control program can also run independently in the central control unit 1 and control any (also non-intelligent) peripheral devices or actuators and sensors of a spinning machine, regardless of whether these are via a bus or in another way, e.g. directly wired or wirelessly connected to the central control unit.

The control program can not only be used as an independent program, but e.g. be designed in the form of one or more subroutines which are linked to a standard control program for controlling the standard machine functions.

The above-described possibility of running the program for generating the control program on an external data processing system and only the code of the control program on the machine, i.e. In this case, it can of course be applied analogously to the central control unit.

Claims (7)

Control device for a spinning machine with a central control unit, which is connected via a bus to several sensors or actuators of the spinning machine,
characterized in that - At least one intelligent multifunction module (8) is present, which is connected to the central control unit (1) via the bus (3) and which - An arithmetic unit (CPU) and a memory (14) for receiving a control program and one or more inputs (IN₁ to IN _n ) or outputs (OUT₁ to OUT _m ), of which at least one input or output with a sensor (9, 10) or actuator (11) is connected, - The at least one intelligent multifunctional module (8) is used for essentially independent processing of the signals of the sensors (9, 10) connected to it and control of the actuators (11) connected to it - The type and number of inputs (IN₁ to IN _n ) or outputs (OUT₁ to OUT _m ) is selected so that the multi-function module (8) can be used essentially for controlling all control tasks occurring in a spinning machine. Device according to claim 1, characterized in that the control program can be loaded from the central control unit (1) into the memory (14). Apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that a part of the memory (14) serves to hold one or more parameter sets and that the parameter sets can be selected or exchanged by the central control unit (1). Device according to one of claims 2 and 3, characterized in that the central control unit (1) comprises a program which enables the user himself to create a user-specific control program for the multifunctional assembly (8). Apparatus according to claim 4, characterized in that the program of the central control unit (1) enables access to internal machine states and their linking. Apparatus according to claim 4 or 5, characterized in that the program does not run on the central control unit but on an external data processing system and the user-specific control program is transferred from the external data processing system into the memory of the multifunctional module by means of a special interface or via the bus (3) becomes. Spinning machine with a control device according to one of the preceding claims.

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