Design of a Distributed Multiaxis Motion Control System Using the IEEE-1394 Bus

This paper presents a distributed multiaxis motion control system based on the IEEE-1394 bus. In the system design, the Unified Modeling Language is employed to illustrate interactions of the objects required in the system. The developed system consists of a set of smart distributed control nodes connected one by one through the IEEE-1394 bus. Each smart node contains four modules, i.e., an IEEE-1394 interface module, a digital signal processor module, a field-programmable gate array module, and a digital-to-analog converter module. It accomplishes its own control task and coordinates with the others through information exchanges, sampling sensor signals, and controlling actuators. A scheduled communication protocol is proposed according to the criteria in terms of bounded time delay and guaranteed transmission. Time delays arising from data processing and message transmission are analyzed. A platform is built, and experiments are conducted to demonstrate the capabilities of the developed distributed control system for real-time communication and synchronous tracking control, which are required for multiaxis applications. The results verify the feasible application of the IEEE-1394 bus to distributed motion control.