Description:
Support was added to the MPI for the new controller: ZMP-SYNQNET-CPCI-3U-uD-XIO. The control I/O tables were extended to support the meiControlInfo(...) method with the new ZMP controller.

Description:
The firmware transfers internal controller variables to fields of the SynqNet Demand packet each sample. Currently the internal variables are limited to 32-bits (float and long). By adding support for the transfer of the 64-bit type double, the outputs from MechaWare blocks can be transferred to the Demand packet. This feature would not normally be used directly by a customer. It is intended for use by future demand output MechaWare blocks.

A new enumerated type MEIXmpDACInputTypeDOUBLE, was added to the MEIXmpDACInputType enumeration. Code was added to motor.c to support the transfer of this type.

How do I use this feature?
The appropriate DemandChannel[ ].Input pointer is set by the MPI to the address of the controller variable. The value of DemandChannel[ ].InputType is set to MEIXmpDACInputTypeDOUBLE.

Description:
The S200 drive firmware can be now downloaded via SynqNet. The drive Firmware versions 3.0A to 127.9Z and 255.0A to 255.9Z support firmware download via SynqNet. The following versions do not support drive firmware download: 2.0a, 2.1a, 2.1b, 129.0a, 130.0a

Description:
Demand mode can now be switched while the amplifier is enabled, which was not possible before. Only certain mode switches are supported, such as between velocity and torque mode. Motors can only be switched to a mode that the motor supports.

How do I use this feature?
meiMotorDemandModeSet(...) is called with a motor and the demand mode to switch to. Demand mode can still be changed using mpiMotorConfigSet(...), but only while the amp is not enabled.

Description:
Support for the feed-forward terms has been added for velocity mode. In SynqNet velocity mode, the controller will send both a velocity demand and torque demand to the drive. In previous versions, the torque demand was always zero and the velocity demand would be set to the output of the closed-loop control algorithm.

How do I use this feature?
In version 03.04.08 and later, if a motor is in velocity mode the Kaff and Kff terms will apply to the torque demand field, the other terms will apply to the velocity demand field. Please see the PID and PIV block diagrams.

The torque mode feed-forward terms operation has not been changed.

Description:
For Velocity and Position Mode drives that support gain tables, the gain table index will be sent to the drive via SynqNet. This feature allows users to switch gain tables in the controller and the drive simultaneously. The gain index is sent to all drives, even if the drives do not support it. Drives that do not support the gain index will ignore the data. Please consult your drive manufacturer's documentation for details about drive parameters for gain tables.

How do I use this feature?
The controller firmware automatically copies the controller's gain index value to the drive via cyclic data in the SynqNet packets. See Gain Tables.

Description:
New Yaskawa drive-specific methods were added to read the encoder counts per revolution for feedback devices that support this feature. These drive-specific methods will be replaced in a future release with a general purpose interface to read the feedback counts per revolution.

How do I use this feature?
The following methods can now be used to read the encoder counts per revolution for the Yaskawa drives/motors. If a drive/motor does not support the encoder counts per revolution, it will return a value of zero for the counts per revolution.

   sgdsEncoderCountsPerRev(MPIControl  control,
                           long        nodeNumber,
                           long        *countsPerRev);

   sgdsBsEncoderCountsPerRev(MPIControl control,
                             long       nodeNumber,
                             long       driveIndex,
                             long       *countsPerRev);

   sgdzMdEncoderCountsPerRev(MPIControl control,
                             long       nodeNumber,
                             long       driveIndex,
                             long       *countsPerRev);

    control - a handle to a control object.
    nodeNumber - index to the SqNode.
    driveIndex - index to the drive interface, relative to the SqNode.
    *countsPerRev - a pointer to the number of counts per motor revolution.
                              A value of zero indicates the counts per revolution are unknown.

Description:
The new AMC-DPQ series drives are now supported. The following drives are now supported.
   - DPQNNIE
   - DPQNNIR
   - DPQNNIA
   - DPQNNIS

How do I use this feature?
Contact Advanced Motion Controls for more information. (www.a-m-c.com)

Description:
The Kollmorgen SqDC drive will generate a Axis Current Limit Fault when the axis current exceeds the programmed current limit value.

How do I use this feature?
Support has been added to the MPI for the Axis Current Fault.

Description:
The mpiMotorPositionFeedbackOffsetSet(...) and mpiMotorPositionFeedbackOffsetGet(...) methods were added to the MPI to allow user applications the ability to store and read back an absolute position offset value. This value will be stored in the EEPROM on the motor itself. This feature will be supported through the drive interface on selected drives only. These methods can directly access storage on the EEPROM, allowing a position offset to be stored from session to session. In conjunction with mpiAxisOriginSet(...), this feature replicates the ability of certain drives to reset the zero position on absolute encoders.

How do I use this feature?
This feature can only be used with a Kollmorgan S200 drive and an EnDat 2.1-capable motor. The S200 must have AuxFB set to "EnDat 2.1" in order for this feature to work correctly.

Description:
Previous MPI versions would not support local controller I/O for ZMP models T115-0001 and T127-0001. Support has now been added to the MPI for the T115-0001 and T127-0001.

How do I use this feature?
The MPI uses the model numbers to decode the local controller digital I/O bit availability. The local controller I/O can be identified via meiControlInfo(...) and accessed with mpiControlDigitalIn(...), mpiControlDigitalOutGet(...), or mpiControlDigitalOutSet(...).

Description:
Support has been added to the MPI for the following Yaskawa SGDZ-BS Series Drives: SGDZ-BS61, SGDZ-BS62, SGDZ-BS63.

How do I use this feature?
For more information, please contact Yaskwawa (www.yaskawa.com).

Description:
The Kollmorgen CD drive with DSP rev G has a new drive firmware download sequence. To support the DSP rev G, the drive firmware download method was modified and a new kollmorgen_ember.a00 file was updated. The support for the drive firmware download feature on the DSP rev G is not backwards compatible with older MPI versions.

How do I use this feature?
For more information, please see the Kollmorgen CD drive.

Description:
The Kollmorgen SqDC and SqStep drives now support warning codes/messages. Support has also been added for the SqDC2 model.

How do I use this feature?
For more information, please see the Kollmorgen SqDC and SqStep drives.

Description:
The Sanyo Denki R-Series is now supported. The Q-Series support has been expanded to include service channel, drive faults/warnings, drive parameters, etc. In previous MPI versions, the Q-Series support was minimal. If you have a Q-Series drive and upgrade the MPI, please contact Sanyo Denki (www.sanyodenki.com) for the latest drive firmware.

How do I use this feature?
For more information, please contact Sanyo Denki (www.sanyodenki.com).
See also, Sanyo Denki Q-Series and R-Series drives.

Description:
New functions were added to get the lower 32 bits of actual and command position data.

mpiAxisActualPositionGet32(...)
mpiAxisCommandPositionGet32(...)

If only the lower 32 bits of position data need to be read, it's faster to use these new functions instead of using the standard -Get position functions.

How do I use this feature?
For descriptions and sample code, see the links to the function pages above.

Description:
The following drive update rate options are now available on the Glentek Omega Drive. EEPROM option numbers 4-7 were added.

How do I use this feature?
See the Glentek Omega Drive. To determine the update rate or period for the drive, use MEISynqNetTiming.node[].updateFreq or MEISynqNetTiming.node[].updatePeriod.

Description:
Support was added to the MPI for the Kollmorgen SqDC drive.

How do I use this feature?
See Kollmorgen SqDC Drive for more details.

Description:
In a ring topology, SynqNet allows the remaining nodes to operate if one or more nodes fail. Previously, the only way to restore normal operation for all nodes was to reinitialize the entire network, which would disrupt any operating node. In cases of modular machines, it may be necessary to service one or more nodes while the other nodes are actively controling motion and I/O. The new SynqNet HotReplace feature allows one or more nodes to be shut down, serviced, and then brought back to normal operation without affecting the operation of other nodes.

How do I use this feature?
See SynqNet HotReplace for more details.

Description:
Support was added for the Pn600 "Regenerative Resistor Capacity" drive parameter for the SGDS-72/75 drives.

How do I use this feature?
To access the Pn600 drive parameter, use the methods meiSqNodeDriveParamGet(...) and meiSqNodeDriveParamSet(...), or meiSqNodeDriveParamListGet(...) and meiSqNodeDriveParamListSet(...). See the Yaskawa SGDS Drive.

Description:
New methods were added to read and write the axis origin to/from the controller's flash memory. This feature is useful for applications that use ABS encoders. However, you cannot save the ABS encoder offset to the drive's flash memory.

How do I use this feature?
To write the origin to the controller's flash memory, use mpiAxisFlashOriginSet(...).
To read the origin from the controller's flash memory, use mpiAxisFlashOriginGet(...).
NOTE: These methods do not access the origin value of the axis in the controller's dynamic memory.

Description:
The FPGA that is used with SQID nodes, C0FE0030_xxxx.sff, has been extended to detect errors communicating with any of the I/O modules (e.g. DIN32DOU32). The MPI has been extended to report these new error conditions.

How do I use this feature?
See the I/O Faults section. See MEISqNodeStatusIoFaults and MEISqNodeStatus.

Description:
Configurable Demand Modes have been added to the MPI. The new feature should be used when it is appropriate for a drive to change its demand mode. Currently, only the S300, S600, and S1800 drives support multiple demand modes. Check with the drive manufacturer for possible settings. Nodes that do not support a drive interface (ex: RMB-SynqNet) should use ANALOG or use ANALOG_DUAL_DAC for nodes with two DAC's per axis.

How do I use this feature?
See MEIMotorDemandMode and MEIMotorConfig. A drive will default to an appropriate demand mode. Use mpiMotorConfigGet/Set(...) to change the demand mode. See SynqNet Demand Modes.

Description:
The controller's command and actual position registers have been expanded to 64 bit. The MPI uses doubles for command and actual positions, which are limited to 1.7E+/-308 (at least 15 digits precision).

How do I use this feature?
See the "Position Resolution Extended" section of the Important Things to Know page.

Description:
Support was added to the MPI for the Kollmorgen S1800 drive.

How do I use this feature?
See Kollmorgen S1800 Drive for more details.

Description:
The maximum number of controllers supported using a particular OS is now available from a macro, MEIPlatformControlCountMax, in platform.h.

How do I use this feature?
This macro should only be used to determine the maximum number of controllers supported on a single system. See MEIPlatformControlCountMax.

Description:
Support was added to the MPI for the Yaskawa SGDS75A drive.

How do I use this feature?
See Yaskawa SGDS Drive for more details.

Description:
It is now possible to determine whether a non-idle axis and motion supervisor state was caused by an application on the host computer or by a controller action. It is useful to know whether a non-IDLE state was caused by a controller event or a user action. If the action source was the controller, the controller may be queried to find out what event caused the error state. In a multi-threaded or multi-process environment, it can also be useful to know if a another thread or process commanded an action that placed the motion supervisor or axis into a non-idle state.

How do I use this feature?
The action source can be obtained by calling mpiMotionStatus(...) or mpiAxisStatus(...) and then reading the MPIStatus.actionSource value. Use the enumeration, MPIActionSource, to decode the value.

Description:
The XmpBufferData.VolatileBuffer was added to the controller's external memory. This volatile memory buffer is initialized to zero after a controller reset or power-up cycle.

How do I use this feature?
The volatile memory buffer can be useful for setting application flags, which can denote that certain operations have taken place. For example, once an axis has been successfully homed, a flag can be set in the volatile buffer. However, after a controller reset, the flag will be reset to zero, indicating that the axis is no longer homed.

Description:
The following functions have been added to sqNode.h to assist the setup of recorders and user limits with I/O on SynqNet nodes.

sqNodeDigitalInPtr(...)
sqNodeDigitalOutPtr(...)
sqNodeAnalogInPtr(...)
sqNodeAnalogOutPtr(...)

How do I use this feature?
For descriptions and sample code, see the links to the function pages above.

Description:
The meiSqNodeDriveMonitorInfo(...) method was added to the MPI for retrieving drive monitor information. This method retrieves the number of supported drive monitors, the firmware locations of the monitors, a mask and shift value for retrieving the monitors, and a list of possible monitor configurations.

How do I use this feature?
This feature should be used when configuring drive monitors. The sqDriveMonitor utility contains an example of how to read and display the monitor information.

Description:
The compatibility of a client object to a server is now verified by meiClientValidate(...). Compatibility is based on MPI_INTERFACE_VERSION and the equality of members of the MEIRemoteMethod enumeration.

How do I use this feature?
The compatibility check feature is automatically invoked when the client object is validated.

Description:
Support was added to the MPI for the Kollmorgen S600 drive.

How do I use this feature?
See Kollmorgen S600 Drive for more details.

Description:
Support was added to the MPI for the Kollmorgen S300 drive.

How do I use this feature?
See Kollmorgen S300 Drive for more details.

Description:
A new function has been added to the MPI which can be used to determine the size of the controller's frame buffer and how many frames are currently in the frame buffer for a particular axis.

How do I use this feature?
See meiAxisFrameBufferStatus(...) for sample code and implementation details.

Description:
The controller firmware performance can be measured with meiControlStatistics(...). This method will read the maximum and average times for the foreground and background controller firmware tasks. The controller performance counters can be cleared with meiControlStatisticsReset(...). This feature is useful for determining the controller processor load. It can also help determine the maximum sample rate and number of available resources. For more details, see Sample Rate and SynqNet Controller Performance.

How do I use this feature?
meiControlStatistics(...) | meiControlStatisticsReset(...) | MEIControlStatistics
See the XmpStats1.c sample application.

Description:
The following functions have been optimized for client/server operation:

• meiSqNodeDriveMonitor
• mpiMotorAmpEnableGet
• mpiMotionStatus
• mpiAxisActualPositionGet
• mpiAxisPositionError

These functions now run remotely on the server. If you are upgrading from a previous release, make sure to upgrade the MPI DLLs on both the client and the server.

Description:
AMC DPQ-Series drives now have three 32-bit words that contain the drive fault and warning codes. To support the additional drive faults/warnings, all three words are read when the meiMotorAmpFault(...) or meiMotorAmpWarning(...) is called.

Description:
WARNING!
Between MPI version 03.04.07 and 03.04.08 the order of the MEIXmpAlgorithm enumeration changed. This change was made for internal performance optimization, but unintentionally affected the MPI interface for the MEIFilterConfig{...} structure.

If your application uses the MEIXmpAlgorithm enum, please be sure to re-compile your application with the 03.04.08 library and header files. If you do not recompile your application, the filter type may not be as expected and a motor may become unstable.

03.04.07

typedef enum { 	
     MEIXmpAlgorithmINVALID = -1, 	
     MEIXmpAlgorithmPID, 	
     MEIXmpAlgorithmPIV, 	
     MEIXmpAlgorithmNONE, 	
     MEIXmpAlgorithmPIV1, 	
     MEIXmpAlgorithmUSER, 

03.04.08

typedef enum { 	
     MEIXmpAlgorithmINVALID = -1, 	
     MEIXmpAlgorithmNONE, 	
     MEIXmpAlgorithmPID, 	
     MEIXmpAlgorithmPIV, 	
     MEIXmpAlgorithmPIV1, 	
     MEIXmpAlgorithmUSER, 

Description:
meiSqNodeInfo(...) for a failed node would return MEISqNodeMessageRESPONSE_TIMEOUT as it attempted to send a service command to read the switchID. Although, a service command timeout is the correct error, this error prevents the user from reading the other fields. The meiSqNodeInfo(...) was modified to only send service commands to the nodes if they have not failed. If the node is in a failed state, the SwitchID is set to an invalid value (-1).

Description:
Parameter range checking was added to mpiMotionConfigSet(...) to protect for
invalid values. mpiMotionConfigSet(...) will return MPIMessagePARAM_INVALID if the decelTime.stop or decelTime.eStop value is negative or greater than 31 bits of controller samples. If zero or less than one sample is specified, a one sample value will be applied.

Description:
The Yaskawa SGDZ-MD Drive motor fault mask was expanded to include MEIMotorFaultMaskAMP_NOT_POWERED by default. This change will cause a dedicated Amp Fault if the Amp Not Powered drive fault bit is active.

Description:
Yaskawa has added new drive parameters to the SGDS drive, which the MPI previously did not support. An updated .dm file was added for support, and the parameter checking code in the drive module was updated to support the new parameters. See the Yaskawa SGDS Drive section for the list of new drive parameters.

Description:
The Yaskawa SGDS motor fault mask was expanded to include MEIMotorFaultMaskAMP_NOT_POWERED by default. This change will cause a dedicated Amp Fault if the Amp Not Powered drive fault bit is active. Changes to application code are not required.

Description:
During SynqNet initialization, there are several steps where the MPI must wait for a time period for the network hardware. This would cause up to 100% CPU usage for several seconds. To reduce the CPU usage, the wait logic was optimized to sleep for the long wait periods and then poll for short intervals. This eliminated the heavy CPU usage without increasing the execution time for mpiControlInit(...) or mpiControlReset(...).

Description:
In previous versions, the drive firmware for the Yaskawa SGDS and SGDZ drives did not allow the multi-turn reset command to be executed while the network was in SYNQ mode. It required the SynqNet network to be shutdown when performing an mtreset. The multi-turn reset function for the Yaskawa SGDS and SGDZ-MD drives has been modified to perform an mtreset without shutting down the whole SynqNet network. Now, when the multi-turn reset is requested, only the node associated with the drive is shutdown (ASYNQ mode) and restarted. Upon successful completion of the multi-turn reset, the node will be brought back to SYNQ mode.

Description:
The SFD device contains useful information about the motor that is connected to the drive. This information is now available as new S200 Drive read-only parameters.

Description:
For path motion (Splines, PVT, PT, etc.), the MPI creates the frames used by the motion and then writes them to the controller. Typically, each point in the path has a corresponding frame for each axis of motion. For path segments with a large number of points (large number of frames), there is an initial group of frames loaded when the motion is started. More frames are loaded as a result of interrupts (events) generated when the axes' frame buffers run low on frames.

In previous versions, the number of frames loaded was always half the capacity of the frame buffer and the "low frame" trigger was hard coded at 32 frames. Although this limit is usually sufficient for the default buffer size of 128 frames, larger buffers could benefit from increasing these limits. In addition, in cases where a backup on path was not needed, the number of initially loaded frames could be larger.

This change will be most useful for customers streaming path (PVT, etc.) points at a high rate. To take advantage of this feature the frame buffers for the axes involved in the streaming motion should have increased frame buffer sizes (larger than the default of 128 frames). Increase the axes' frame buffer sizes with mpiControlConfigSet(...) or the meiConfig utility. Be sure to retain the parameter for path motion as FALSE.

Description:
The AmpNotPowered fault was added into the default MEIMotorFaultConfig.faultMask logic due to changes in the S200 FPGA brake logic. The "Amp Not Powered" fault bit will now trigger the motor's AmpFault when the Brake is applied directly by the drive. See FPGA issue FP523 for details.