Stretch Forming Equipment

We recently redesigned the control system for an OEM that builds hydraulic stretch forming equipment used in the metal forming industry. The new control system uses commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware throughout and runs on the QNX 6 operating system. Its design is based on a distributed architecture in which remotely mounted I/O modules communicate with the controller-in-charge over a local area network. This architecture has many advantages-especially in large machines like these where it makes field wiring much easier and reduces costs.

The previous control system was designed in 1988 and ran on the QNX 2 operating system. Over the years it was installed on more than 50 machines world-wide, many of which are still in service today. This second generation controller incorporates many of the hardware and software advances that have been made since the original design.

The new control system features several advanced and innovative algorithms including articulated, coordinated control of thirty or more axes, closed-loop force control and automatic yield point detection.