What's New in KAS v3.03

KAS v3.03 introduces the following new features.

EtherCAT FSoE

The KAS IDE"Integrated development environment" An integrated development environment is a type of computer software that assists computer programmers in developing software. IDEs normally consist of a source code editor, a compiler and/or interpreter, build-automation tools, and a debugger can now display the connections to transfer safety-critical process data sent via the EtherCATEtherCAT is an open, high-performance Ethernet-based fieldbus system. The development goal of EtherCAT was to apply Ethernet to automation applications which require short data update times (also called cycle times) with low communication jitter (for synchronization purposes) and low hardware costs frames. The new FSoE / PDO Connections Tab displays the Input (Tx) and Output (Rx) PDOs for discovered EtherCAT devices. PDOs can be selected and connected, and will generate the connected information in the ENI file. The KAS RuntimeIn computer science, runtime (or run-time) describes the operation of a computer program, the duration of its execution, from beginning to termination (compare compile time). Within KAS, runtime also refers to the virtual machine that manage the program written in a computer language while it is running copies the PDO data between the connected PDOs. The FSoE protocol, communication, and state machine are handled by the EtherCAT Safety devices.

T-Bot, H-Bot, & Gantry Robotics

Kinematic transforms have been added to support H-Bot, T-Bot, and Gantry robots. For more details, see the following topics

• The KAS IDE's Project Explorer now supports Axes Groups for PLCopenA vendor -and product- independent worldwide association active in Industrial Control and aiming at standardizing PLC file formats based on XML axes.
• The MC_KIN_REF Structure has been added to define the robotic system transform type and its parameters.
• The MC_SetKinTra function block has been added. This function block sets the kinematic transform between the Machine Coordinate System and the Axes Coordinate System. This allows the application to command motion in Cartesian coordinates for the robotic system.

AKD2G MDP Support

The AKD2G with SMM options #2 and #3 is supported by the KAS IDE. During scan/discovery the AKD2G default safety module profiles will be automatically added to the AKD2G device in the KAS IDE project tree. The module profiles can be changed in the project tree, by deleting the default modules under the AKD2G device and then adding different modules to the AKD2G device.

AKD2G Backup and Restore

The EtherCAT devices backup and restore supports the AKD2G models. For more details see EtherCAT Devices Restore.