The PLCopen open standards organisation has release the latest part in its Motion Control suite, focusing on co-ordinated multi-axis motion in 3D.

Other parts of the suite deal with master/slave motion control, where the master axis position is used to generate one or more slave axis position commands. For 3D movements, a set of axes is grouped, without a master axis.

If a problem occurs with master/slave axes, the other axes continue to move. Combining axes in a group provides a basis for a better error behaviour, says PLCopen.

Path-oriented movements are usually programmed using either specialised robot programming languages, or G-code as used in the CNC world. The new PLCopen initiative transfers these functions from the worlds of robotics and CNC, to PLCs.

Part 4 of the Motion Control suite can be downloaded from PLCopen’s Web site.