这是娱乐：自动化赢得其支持作用

对大多数人来说,剧院、艺术展览和amusement parks are all about having a little fun and enjoying the finer things in life. For automation professionals, these venues are about applying rugged technology and enforcing safety practices. For them, entertainment engineering is a sophisticated business.

Bosch Rexrothwas one automation company that discovered this when it ventured into the stage drives-and-controls business. It happened during a renovation of the city auditorium in its hometown of Lohr, Germany. Since that project back in the 1970s, the company’s technology has grown from a marginal product line into an independent business on the worldwide stage.

最近索赔的名声是博世雷克斯在转变的六年改造中的作用Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater进入世界上最具技术上先进的剧院之一。由于该项目于2011年完成，因此600个电动和液压驱动器在水晶吊灯和俄罗斯古典主义的金色外观之后一直在悄悄地播放他们的零件。他们一直在提高和降低七个双层平台，该平台构成了520平方米的舞台的段，上面的220个升降机一直在降低和举起风景。按钮的触摸启动了预编程的同步运动序列，可以无声地移动集合和群组。

骑行平台和在移动负荷下工作的人说明了工业和娱乐自动化之间的关键差异。工人和客户自己，在游乐园骑行 - 正在与移动部件互动，在娱乐业的主要设计标准中进行安全。这不是事后的想法，而且制造业的情况往往是往往的。在这种环境中，安全胜过正常运行时间，可靠性甚至成本。

At the Bolshoi Theater, a sensor network and control software provide an important line of defense for the actors and prop hands. Also important is a carefully thought-out, fail-safe design. “You have to know what a failure at any point in the system is going to do to the output,” says Greg Gleason, hydraulics special technologies manager at Bosch Rexroth. “If somebody is on a platform supported by hydraulic cylinders and something doesn’t work right, the design must ensure that the platform isn’t going to fall or cause an abrupt, uncontrolled motion.”

The show must go on

Another ramification of the close proximity of the consumer to the production equipment is that reliability is the second-most important design criterion in entertainment, following closely behind safety. There are no work-in-process buffers, warehouses or retail outlets between most entertainment venues and their customers, as there usually are between manufacturing lines and consumers of manufactured goods. Consequently, the equipment must work when customers are assembled in the theater to watch a performance or when visitors to an amusement park are ready to ride an attraction.

为确保安全性和可靠性，娱乐合同规格，特别是主题公园的规格非常涉及。事实上，Gleason报告说，他们往往比军事规格更苛刻。“一个吸引力必须设计和建造，每天364天每天运行16小时，”他说。

因此，高端工程公司一直在开发仿真工具，以帮助他们的工程师设计安全可靠的设备。博世克罗斯队的工程师使用的一组专有仿真工具在应用程序涉及大量的群众和侵略性加速和减速时，博世雷克斯的工程师已经特别有所帮助。当一个气缸在高动态的应用中非常快地缩回时，流体可以用可能影响气缸操作的力流入返回管线，并且在某些情况下损坏它。该软件可帮助设计人员分析流程并减轻这些收缩。

自动化供应商的研究人员还使用这些工具和物理测试来指导他们对舞台设备上越来越强大的驱动器的趋势作出反应。在舞台上方的机器现在可以在1.8米/秒的1.8米/秒移动。由于紧急停止可能会产生两倍的载荷，因为标称载荷的负载组件必须足够强以承受震动。该系统的另一部分可以是用于机电绞车的工程人员的液压阻尼装置。

Precision is an art

Although safety and reliability are the two top performance requirements for most entertainment engineering, precise motion control is often a third. For theme park attractions that people ride in the dark, for example, the motion must be synchronized exactly with the audiovisual presentation. Slight lags can nauseate riders who are susceptible to motion sickness, according to Linda Freeman, senior sales engineer atRockwell Automation。

精确地影响客户如此直接，娱乐业依赖于复杂的运动控制技术。事实上，运动控制应用的复杂性发现在制造中的竞争对手。两者都有他们的简单应用，只需直接驱动异步电机或逆变器驱动电机。“但两者也有具有复杂运动学的应用程序，需要与伺服电机进行精确的运动控制，”迈克尔穆斯查报告，阶段和展示技术垂直市场经理Beckhoff自动化。

When it comes to the number of axes on an application, though, entertainment wins a Tony. “In a manufacturing setting, a really big machine could have 60 axes of motion; an especially complex one may have up to 100 axes,” Matuschke says. “In the entertainment industry, however, we have seen recent applications with hundreds—even over 1,000 axes—on one machine.”

在Lundin挪威的动力学雕塑中，来自Beckhoff自动化的控制坐标升高和降低有机玻璃管的529伺服电机，以模拟海洋中的波浪波浪。传感器将杆向上驱动到安全的位置，让游客涉及波浪。资料来源：Beckhoff Automation

A good example is the kinetic art that has enjoyed a measure of popularity lately. There are 529 servomotors in the “Breaking the Surface” exhibit that Oslo-based oil company Lundin Norway commissioned to celebrate its 10th anniversary. Control technology from Beckhoff Automation coordinates the motors that raise and lower 529 bright-orange Plexiglas tubes in a way that simulates undulating waves in the ocean.

Complicating the control challenge, designers at the Scandinavian Design Group created the kinetic sculpture to interact with visitors. Based on feedback from capacitor sensing in the floor and four cameras hanging in the corners, the tubes retreat upward into a safe position as visitors dive into the exhibit and wade through the waves.

基于pc的控制架构负责generating this motion relies on primary components at three main levels: sensors and EtherCAT terminals at the sensor and actuator level, four C5102 industrial PCs at the PLC level, and software at the superordinate application level.

Beckhoff's EtherCAT-based fieldbus has the speed to process the 10,200 connection points in the system. TwinCAT NC point-to-point axis-positioning software performs the interpolation necessary to create the undulations, calculating the position of each tube within 1 ms. The set values for the designers’ 3D motion profile were imported through an ADS interface from C++ into the automation software.

The modular I/O, industrial Ethernet, and flexible PC-based control architecture is a good fit for the entertainment industry, Matuschke says. The combination accommodates diverse forms of automation and their protocols, including those that this industry relies on for lighting, audiovisual multimedia, and building automation. Beckhoff can mix and match many fieldbuses because its system has incorporated more than 30 standard buses, including those used in manufacturing, building automation and entertainment.

Beckhoff Credits EtherCAT技术提供必要的骨干。乘坐像DMX这样的现场总线，这是一个娱乐的行业标准。“DMX每位主人需要512个字节，”Matuschke解释道。“通过使用EtherCAT作为更高级别的总线，我们可以轻松地将从站安装到EtherCAT系统中，每个站点对应于应用程序的正确尺寸。”通信足以有效地运输数据。

SMPTE时间码相同，另一个现场总线是娱乐行业的标准。“我们利用我们的极端快速控制（XFC）技术来解开这种模拟信号并通过基于PC的控制平台来分析它，”Matuschke说。

Producing a science project

Manufacturing technology is usually relatively straightforward, well established over generations. “Processing chemicals or building conveyor-based production lines has been done many times,” Freeman says. “You’re often just optimizing, not trying something revolutionary on each project.”

Amusement parks, on the other hand, have moved beyond simple rollercoasters and rotating rides—today’s attractions incorporate creative content to add to the experience, like fire, gas explosions, or a combination of heat, humidity and rain. “So new attractions are often more like science projects,” Freeman observes.

工程师必须在娱乐中处理的另一个未知数是人类货物本身。“在制造工厂中，不同高度和重量的操作员不会影响控制系统，”弗里曼笔记。然而，在一个游乐园的吸引力上，控制系统必须能够适应车辆上人们的不同重量。“以及车手将如何与车辆互动也是不可预测的。

工程师任务使创意成为现实需要彻底了解运动本身和控制机制背后的物理。他们还需要访问适当的仿真工具，在过去几年中，使用这一点越来越成为这些项目的最佳实践。

例如，用户可以将SolidWorks 3D模型和运动配置文件数据的Excel文件导入运动分析器并模拟运动应用程序。“如果可以随着时间的推移在机械系统中模拟力量和热量，那么您可以正确地尺寸电机和控制系统，”Freeman说。仿真还使得更容易执行以下情况，以确保运动控制系统可以提供所需的创意内容。

Wireless tracks a dark ride

在一个案例中，弗里曼和罗克韦尔自动化的同事使用了他们的运动分析仪仿真工具来改善新骑行的经济学，该工具将在黑暗中高速运行。模拟帮助设计团队与许多未知数交易，因此可以对自动化进行正确的尺寸。“我们能够通过模拟将项目中的大部分猜测带到前端，”Freeman说。

消除猜测的另一个策略是进行概念证明。在一个示例中，目标是最小化传感器的布线量而不会影响安全性和可靠性。因为车辆在一个非常大的建筑物内横穿大量距离，所以用电线连接传感器是昂贵的。

To avoid this expense, the park’s technical staff decided to try wireless technology. “No one had done this before,” Freeman says. “So the challenge was maintaining safety and tracking position in a very high-speed environment.”

罗克韦尔共事骑的设计工程师to simulate the control system and then conduct a live test on an existing attraction. After the simulation and proof of concept, more of the unknowns became known, and the final design could be created. The Rockwell engineers also assisted during installation to adjust the configuration for the operating environment and to conduct tests to make sure that it performed to specification.

Even then, there is still guesswork involved for predicting the longevity of components. As a result, a new attraction will remain a science project for several years after being put into service. “Variations usually don’t become predictable until you have two or three years’ worth of operating data,” Freeman explains. “Sometimes, it’s not until a ride has been built and running for a while in the heat, vibration and other environmental conditions that you really start to learn what can cause a component to fail.”

When variable-frequency drives (VFDs) failed prematurely at one theme park, Rockwell brought in materials scientists to conduct tests onsite and in the lab to identify the root cause, which turned out to be brake dust. “Our solution was to put a special coating on the boards in the VFDs so the brake dust wouldn’t cause shorts,” Freeman recalls.

他们还能够将学习的经验教训应用于制造业。“我们意识到这种解决方案可能对其他行业有益，”弗里曼说。“所以我们在新产品系列出来时，我们制作了标准功能。”