Drive Systems (Motors And Drives)

Drive systems operate in a coordinated fashion—with control between the controller (PLC) and the drive unit. A variety of sensors, switches, and transducers are a part of the overall scheme of automation.
Proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control is used when automatic control of some quantity is required. Temperature, pressure, humidity, and level are just a few of the variables that can be conveniently controlled by
PID.
Tension control is a major part of any coordinated system that processes web material. Dancer control is similar to tension control, in that a separate regulator signal is fed back to the drive in order for correction to take place. Proportional gain and integration time play a part in the tuning of a web system.
A variety of remote operator devices are available for interfacing signals to the drive unit. Remote operator stations are the simplest form of remote control. Standard inputs and outputs (I/O) would include start /stop, speed reference, digital inputs, analog outputs, and relay outputs. Both sinking and sourcing control are used in industry today.
Serial communications is the simplest form of communication link to a drive. Typically, multiple drives are controlled by one system controller, which could be a computer that is set up to talk to the protocol that is installed in the drive. Fiber optic communications has the highest immunity to noise, compared to other forms of drive communications. Optical fibers are connected in a ring structure, and can be connected with plastic or glass fiber. Building automation systems or Ethernet systems are able to talk to many drives on the market today.