Siemens expands its Industrial Edge offering for machine tools

Siemens is expanding its Industrial Edge offering for machine tools with two new edge devices. In addition to the already available IPC227E, there is now the IPC127E, an entry-level device, and the IPC427E, the most powerful edge device for machine tools. The IPC127E serves as an entry-level solution to provide connectivity and performance for simple use cases. With the IPC427E, Siemens is launching a device with sufficient computing power to meet the demands of AI-based edge applications and sophisticated data analytics. The new Simatic ET200 adapter also offers the possibility of connecting additional external sensors and acquiring their data at a sampling rate of up to 10kHz. For this purpose, the already known edge application Analyze MyWorkpiece /Capture has received an update. In addition to data on the workpiece, tool and tool path, this app can now also record data from external sensors in high temporal resolution. As a novelty, the app can also stream process data via MQTT to an external MQTT endpoint. In addition, users can visualize the workpiece of a 5-axis machining operation with the newly developed online coordinate retransformation from the machine coordinate system to the workpiece coordinate system. This is interesting because the visualization of the machining axes in visualization applications such as Analyze MyWorkpiece /Toolpath gives no indication of the machined workpiece. All other recorded data can subsequently be visualized and analyzed with Analyze MyWorkpiece /Toolpath. The insights gained enable optimization of the CAD/CAM model and the generated NC program. In addition, Analyze MyWorkpiece /Toolpath now allows the creation of a realistic surface reconstruction using process data recorded with Industrial Edge for Machine Tools. This allows the workpiece quality to be evaluated before a workpiece has even been manufactured, because the surface reconstruction also works with process data from an air cut.