This webinar explores collaborative robotic automation (cobots) and the key control and communication technologies used to integrate cobots into real manufacturing environments. It explains how cobots differ from traditional industrial robots—emphasizing safety, flexibility, and rapid deployment—and reviews the typical subsystems involved in a robotic cell, including motion control, I/O for sensors and grippers, vision systems, and operator HMIs. The training highlights ICP DAS USA motion control options such as Modbus TCP multi-axis motion controllers and EtherCAT-based motion control architectures, showing how they can be monitored and commanded from PLCs, PACs, or SCADA software. It also covers practical integration tools like Modbus RTU↔Modbus TCP tiny gateways for connecting legacy serial devices into Ethernet networks, and demonstrates how SCADA software (Aveva Edge/InduSoft) can be used to build operator screens for PackML-style state control, recipe-based operation, alarms, and OEE dashboards.
