Hirschmann MCS Showcases Future-Proof Products

Hirschmann MCS Showcases Future-Proof Products

At this year’s SPS/IPC Drives show in Nuremberg, Germany, Hirschmann Mobile Machine Control Solutions (MCS) hit the bull’s-eye with its products. With 56,321 trade visitors on three days, Europe’s leading event devoted to electrical automation was even more popular than in 2010 (52,028 visitors) and set a record in terms of exhibitors: in 12 halls, a total of 1,429 companies (compared to 1,323 in 2010) informed visitors about the latest products and solutions in the field of automation. The congress associated with the show was also a major attraction, with 349 attendees (up from 302 in 2010).

Hirschmann MCS demonstrated its competencies and expertise at no fewer than two booths: the Belden booth and, for the first time, also at the booth of the OSADL (Open Source Automation Development Lab eG) cooperative, which promotes and globally coordinates open-source projects for the mechanical and systems engineering industries as well as the automation industry on behalf of the open-source community.
The highlights exhibited by Hirschmann MCS were the iSCALE Control System and the new eSENS Safety PLd sensor electronics; the latter was launched at the show. The capabilities of the iSCALE Control System attracted interest not only from users in the crane sector, but also from representatives of many other branches of industry.

They were curious about safety-related aspects, but also wanted to know how the automation platform works. The visitors were thrilled with this innovative system’s modularity, which lets it be easily adapted to meet the requirements of any mobile application – in any industry. The IP66/67 version of cSCALE, the standalone controller of the iSCALE Control System, was a particularly big hit.
The first applications for the new eSENS Safety PLd sensor electronics are in the fSENS force sensor family, which provides mechanical engineering companies with the first-ever EN 13849-compliant products. The entire pSENS pressure sensor family is also available in PLd-compliant versions with CANopen Safety. With both the iSCALE Control System and the new eSENS Safety PLd sensor electronics, Hirschmann presented answers to the trade show’s main challenge: namely, EN 13849 conformity while meeting the tightened safety requirements of PLd, cat. 2 for control and sensor solutions.
Many visitors were also fascinated by the presented safety applications with embedded Linux. They paid their respects to Hirschmann MCS for its visionary approach of basing new controllers on embedded Linux and lauded these versatile, future-proof platforms. The Director of R&D at Hirschmann MCS, Robert Tordy, drew a positive balance: “We had many interesting talks during the three days of the show. There was surprisingly great interest in Embedded Linux for safety-critical applications, which we can offer with our iSCALE Control System platform. It was so huge, in fact, that we were actually able to launch concrete customer projects right at the show. All in all, we had very exciting results in connection with open-source applications and Embedded Linux-based controllers.”