Entwicklung eines Kommunikationssystems für dezentrale aktive Komponenten

Communication systems of automation technology provide solutions to interconnect sensors, actuators and control components. The use of such systems in experiments with constantly changing components lead to huge efforts in reprogramming of the control. Furthermore, the connection of active components made of functional materials has a low priority in most automation solutions. In this work, a communication system with controller- and peripheral modules was developed that flexibly connect up to 50 decentralized, active network subscribers and control components. The communication is based on an extended I2 C bus for longer distances with cycle times of 20 ms for 50 subscribers. A signal regeneration and distribution by each subscriber allows different topologies and a transmission distance of 20 m between two modules. The controller module takes over the communication process and enables the integration of control components through various interfaces. Actuator and sensor interfaces are provided by peripheral modules with customizable hardware components. Data processing is realized with a 32 bit ARM Cortex M4 microcontroller. Bus systems, interfaces and deployment scenarios were analyzed to implement and create a hardware and software design. Through a circuit design hardware components have been described theoretically and by simulation. A communication unit and changeable peripheral unit with a constant current source for shape memory actuators as well as analog and digital signals were built. In the software design, the definition of the data packages, the communication sequence, the error cancellation and the distinction between the modules were processed. Experimental studies of sub-functions and the overall system show the functionality and completed the development