A novel application for CNC axis sharing has been developed by NUM and will be demonstrated by the hardware and software developer at EMO Milano 2015, in October. NUM explained the new capability would help designers to create machine tools with “unprecedented versatility and productivity.” Typical applications include multi-station production centers and rotary transfer machines with complex multi-role axis control requirements.

NUM also will be exhibiting several new products – including a new, small servomotor and drive combination for small swivel heads – that demonstrate the scalability of its Flexium+ CNC platform for “virtually any level of machine tool complexity.”

The new axis-sharing capability provides a to control a large number of different groups of interrelated or synchronized motion axes, by using advanced dynamic resource allocation techniques to share control across multiple CNC kernels.

This new functionality extends the flexibility of NUM’s high-end eight-channel Flexium+ 68 CNC architecture by allowing the control of up to 32 servo drives to be timeshared by any of the CNC kernels in the system.

NUM’s Flexium+ CNC platform offers a choice of three configurations of CNC kernel, so machine designers can create cost- and performance-optimized control systems for a wide range of automation. Also, the platform provides an optional system-wide functional safety architecture (called “NUMSAFE”) that simplifies implementation of safety functions for almost any machine tool, regardless of its complexity or number of axes.

In addition to the axis sharing facility, NUM also will demonstrate a new 40-mm frame size, servomotor and drive combination for the swivel head axes of small machine tools, and a new 5-kW power supply for use with single-phase mains supplies.

And, the developer will show two new single-cable servomotors fitted with high-resolution absolute digital encoders, intended to help designers improve machine speed and efficiency by making maximum use of the inherent high bandwidth capabilities of Flexium+ CNC systems.