Optimized solutions for safe motion control applications

Abstract:
Historically safety for industrial motor drive applications has been considered as a combination of simple hardware and software to ensure functional Safety of the product. Today’s designs have increasingly complex microelectronics, such as microcontrollers (MCUs), microprocessors units (MPUs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). The software now includes sophisticated control algorithms, state machines and user interface functions. So the complexity of hardware and software integration is challenging for designers to assess and implement. In addition depending on the architecture (isolation barrier) the Safety implementation at system level requires a specific split of sub-systems with dedicated HW and SW diagnostics to achieve the targeted SIL level, which requires huge development resources. For a high SIL Level with a requirement of HFT=1 this paper recommends a diverse dual chip solution based on TI non-ARM 32bit C2000 MCU as SEooC for low latency close control loops and the new TI multi-cores ARM-based SoC with a safe Island for a safe communication. The Safety is achieved by following a TUEV certified (TI-internal) development process that helps TI to manage and mitigate the probability for systematic faults (that could lead to failures). Both controllers provide a built-in Safety HW and SW diagnostic for high SIL levels.