Wind River powers robot control unit for Italy-based Comau

SPS/IPC/DRIVES 2011, NUREMBERG, GERMANY: Wind River announced that Comau Robotics, one of the worldwide leading manufacturers of high quality industrial robots, is running Wind River’s VxWorks real-time operating system (RTOS) for its C5G system, the latest generation of its Robot Control Unit.

Comau Robotics has been designing automated integrated solutions for the past thirty years, offering a complete range of innovative robots to deliver high performance solutions. The C5G, the company’s fifth-generation control unit, is 50 times faster than the previous version.

Using VxWorks, it runs peripherals control software, application software and real-time functions on an advanced multi-core architecture. The C5G modular hardware architecture has been designed to simultaneously manage several robots, running a variety of advanced motion algorithms. The system’s high processing power, low power consumption, and power failure recovery functionality are made possible by VxWorks, and demonstrate Comau Robotics’ practice of building highly innovative and reliable automated solutions for the market.

“After looking at other RTOSs, Comau turned to Wind River because VxWorks delivered the levels of performance, reliability, safety, and security required for our next-generation Robot Control Unit,” said Luca Lachello, software engineering manager at Comau. “In addition, Wind River’s global footprint and strong technology heritage in the industrial control automation and robotics market segments were leading factors that set them apart from the rest. By implementing VxWorks, we have laid the foundation for a technological relationship that we believe will provide us with long-term competitive advantages.”

“We are honored to have an industry leader like Comau rely on Wind River to power its cutting-edge C5G design,” said Jens Wiegand, VP and GM of industry solutions at Wind River. “Wind River is helping Comau focus on delivering differentiated and powerful robot control units by providing the foundational technology required to successfully introduce a complex product to market.”