施耐德电气进入PAC竞技场

两种趋势的融合 - 由技术和其他客户驱动的趋势 - 加入了几年前创建了一个新的段，称为可编程自动化控制器（PACS）。当时的现行离散机器控制器是可编程逻辑控制器或PLC。它被视为逻辑继电器银行的数字版本。同时，为个人电脑（PC）开发的技术变得更加可靠，更便宜，更强大。该技术包括更快的主处理器芯片，更快和更便宜的内存，更强大的编程工具。自动化技术提供商开始吸收这些技术，尊贵的PLC开始变形了新的东西。

Meanwhile, customers were clamoring for new features and functionality in their controllers. They wanted better data handling and improved networking. They didn’t want the hassle of separate controllers—and programming environments—for logic and motion. And the new PC technologies provided the solution. Thus was PAC technology born.

Proliferating PACs

In recent years, automation control vendors ranging from large players such as Rockwell Automation and Siemens to smaller vendors such as Advantech and Opto 22 have launched a raft of controller products referred to as PACs. But Schneider Electric—the Rueil-Malmaison, France-based supplier whose product families include the Modicon line that gave birth to the programmable logic controller category in the late 1960s—has stuck with the PLC moniker. But now change is in the wind.

“We looked at the definition of a PAC and saw that our controllers looked like that,” says Geoff Walker, director of automation and control marketing for Schneider Electric, in Raleigh, N.C. “With openness, communication capability, multiple languages, multitasking applications and more, our controllers are more than PLCs.”

The upshot: Schneider Electric recently introduced its first PAC product. The Telemecanique Modicon M340 programmable automation controller (PAC), extends the line of Modicon controllers begun in 1968 with the introduction of the first programmable logic controller (PLC), capable of real-time logic solving. The new incarnation not only offers real-time logic solving, but also communication, motion and database manipulation capabilities in multiple programming environments. The Modicon M340 PAC joins the Modicon Premium and the Modicon Quantum, Schneider Electric’s other automation controllers that are programmed with Unity Pro, the latest IEC 61131-3 development software. These products—previously referred to as PLCs, but now being called PAC’s by company marketing executives—comprise a full range of programmable controllers designed to affordably and effectively handle the requirements of very simple machine tasks to the most complex machine solutions.

扩大传统

“The original Modicon PLC sparked an evolution in industrial performance that has been fostered by Schneider Electric’s ongoing commitment to developing innovative products that are safe, reliable and easy-to-use,” says Richard Hutton, senior automation marketing specialist, Schneider Electric North American Operating Division. “The Modicon M340 builds upon that tradition and provides even greater efficiency and performance with a single development platform that uses common tagging and a single database for development tasks across a range of disciplines.”

PAC包含4兆位（MB）内存（升级至16MB），256千字节（KB）数据，可以管理高达70,000条指示的应用程序。通信选项包括USB端口和以太网（要点点或网络）。内部闪存和基于SD的存储卡允许数据和应用程序备份。可以添加4到12个模块，每个模块最大密度为64个通道。每个模块都设计用于“热插拔”，并由中央处理单元自动重新配置。

Schneider Electric
www.us.telemecanique.com.