October 17
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hardware. Traditionally, leading machine
and robot manufacturers used to develop
their own controller boards. However, with
new generations of CPUs being launched at
accelerated speeds and machine equipment
needing to incorporate the latest functions to
meet Industry 4.0 demands, manufacturers
are forced to change their controller board
designs more frequently. This requires time
and leads to delays in passing certifications so
ultimately results in increased time-to-market.
To circumvent these problems, manufacturers
need to start to evaluate the use of embedded
Computer-on-Modules (COMs) for custom-
izing their control boards. With these off-the-
shelf available COMs, machine performance
can be upgraded to the latest CPU with a sim-
ple module replacement. There is no need to
redesign the entire control board, which helps
to significantly accelerate the product devel-
opment cycle.
The COM design model, which combines the
core module and a customized carrier board,
has the advantage of boosting flexibility. Yet
there are further challenges to overcome. First
of all, a COM is not a complete single board
computer; it is the system core and controls
peripheral applications via interfaces and spe-
cialized functionality on the carrier board. In
the case of equipment malfunction, the added
complexity may make it more difficult to
identify whether the source of the problem
lies in the carrier board, COM or peripheral
cards. Therefore, without help from a team of
experts, locating the root cause can be time
consuming. In addition, manufacturers with
ambitions to develop intelligent machine or
robotics solutions tend to engage in projects
that are diverse and often involve complex
requirements such as firmware changes and
BIOS customizations. Support for multiple
operating systems including Windows, Linux,
RTOS and virtualization is also required
so specific development kits are needed to
ensure smooth development of both the car-
rier board and software. However, as many
suppliers are outsourcing a large part of their
development work to third-party vendors and
have no plan to train their own software engi-
neers, they lack the ability to solve problems
independently and to promptly provide the
necessary technical support.
A leading international robotic arm manufac-
turer faced the challenges described during its
transition from internally designed controller
boards to the adoption of the COM concept.
ADLINK Technology comprehensive COM
starter kits – specifically tailored to fulfill
not only individual but all requirements for
industrial automation and robotic applica-
tions, complete with reference designs – were
able to eliminate most of the challenges of the
customer. When the customer encountered
difficulties during development, the techni-
cal team responded quickly and effectively to
assist in addressing system integration issues,
whether or not they were directly related to
the COM. When necessary, highly trained
ADLINK staff visited the customer location
to find the root cause of the problem as it is
the company goal always to provide profes-
sional support to customers during the entire
development process. If module vendors have
their own signal measurement laboratories,
they can help customers also in measuring all
computer input and output signal waveforms
to ensure that COM design and manufactur-
ing comply with all the required standards.
Yet helping customers during the design-in
process of a module is not the only service
COM vendors can offer. They can support
them even more comprehensively by pub-
lishing complete design for manufacturing
(DFM) verification principles for the product
design-in stage. All those efforts aim to guar-
antee highest product compatibility and reli-
ability as well as fastest time-to-market. Close
collaboration with Intel is helping firms such
as ADLINK to launch new COM products the
day new processors for the embedded mar-
kets become available, so that OEM engineers
can instantly upgrade their control systems
with the very latest Intel processor technology,
allowing really fast and also highly reliable
time-to-market strategies.
Figure 1. The rugged starter kits are tailored for Industry 4.0 and collaborative robotic
applications and come complete with reference designs for various purposes
Figure 2. Thanks to their 10 GbE interfaces and massive PCIe support, the brand-new COM Ex-
press Type 7 Computer-on-Modules from ADLINK Technology are tailored for Industry 4.0 server
and collaborative robotic applications
