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21 Timing Challenges in Multi-axis Robotics and Machine Tool Applications Dara O'Sullivan System Applications Manager Introduction Industrial robotics and machine tool applications involve the precise, coordinated movement of several axes in space to accomplish the job at hand. Robots typically have six axes that need to be controlled in a coordinated manner, and sometimes seven if the robot moves along a rail. In computer numerical control (CNC) machining, 5-axis coordination is common, although applications can utilize up to 12 axes in which tools and work pieces are both being moved with respect to each other in space. Each axis comprises a servo drive, a motor, and sometimes a gearbox between the motor and the axis joint, or end effector. The system is then interconnected over an Industrial Ethernet network, usually in a line topology (Figure 1). A machine controller converts the required spatial trajectory to individual position references for each servo axis, and these are communicated over the network on a cyclic basis. Industry 4.0 and Beyond | ADI