Machine manufacturers from Austria and Germany took the opportunity at the B&R User Meeting to learn about the latest trends on the Automation market. In select presentations, company experts spoke of product innovations and current directions of development in the area of automation engineering. These presenters emphasized the impressive functionality of B&R products using application examples and live demonstrations. Industry representatives and researchers cited successful cooperative projects with B&R and introduced impressive applications solutions from various industrial branches.
Stefan Schönegger, Project Manager for Controls at B&R, shared the success story of POWERLINK. In addition to its inclusion in IEC 61159, POWERLINK has also recently become available for free download. "Open Source has not been very prevalent in machine manufacturing thus far, but the independence of individual manufacturers and the option of swift error correction are indisputable advantages that machine manufactures cannot ignore for long," according to Schönegger.
Kurt Zehetleitner, B&R Mechatronic Technologies developer, highlighted new possibilities for more efficient energy usage and reduction of operating costs in the field of hydraulic drive technology. In the course of his presentation, he compared the efficiency of several hydraulic options, underscoring how simply each hydraulic solution could be implemented using B&R's Automation Studio development tool which results in minimal configuration work for the operator. The fact that the hydraulic controllers can be implemented with the software allows for high-performance, cost-efficient machine solutions.
Over the course of the two day event, participants of the User Meeting received important information regarding optimization of hardware, engineering and commissioning costs. These B&R presentations allowed for discussion of current topics and served to inspire the audience with new ideas.
