Siemens SINAMICS S120 Equipment Manual page 21

Drive for multi-axis applications
The trend towards separate axes in mechanical engineering is growing all the time. Where
possible, central drives are being replaced by electronically coordinated servo drives. These
require drives with a connected DC link, which allows cost-saving energy exchange between
braking and driving axes.
SINAMICS S120 features infeeds and inverters that cover a broad power range, are
designed for seamless integration, and enable space-saving, multi-axis drive configurations.
New system architecture with a central Control Unit
Electronically coordinated individual drives work together to perform your drive tasks. Higher-
level controllers operate the drives to achieve the required coordinated movement. This
requires cyclic data exchange between the control and all the drives. This exchange always
had to take place via a field bus, which required a great deal of time and effort for installation
and configuration. SINAMICS S120 takes a different approach. A central control unit controls
the drive for all connected axes and also establishes the technological links between the
axes. Since all the required data is stored in the central Control Unit, it does not need to be
transferred. Inter-axis connections can be established within a component and easily
configured in the STARTER commissioning tool using a mouse.
Simple technological tasks can be carried out by the SINAMICS S120 Control Unit itself. For
complex numerical or motion-control tasks, high-performance SINUMERIK or SIMOTION D
modules are used instead.
DRIVE-CLiQ – the digital interface between SINAMICS components
The SINAMICS S120 components, including the motors and encoders, are interconnected
via a joint serial interface called DRIVE-CLiQ. The standardized cables and connectors
reduce the variety of different parts and cut storage costs.
Converter boards for converting standard encoder signals to DRIVE-CLiQ are available for
third-party motors or retrofit applications.
Equipment Manual for Booksize Power Units
Equipment Manual, (GH2), 03/2006 Edition, 6SL3097-2AC00-0BP3
System overview
1.4 Introduction
1-5