Prodigy Machine Control Boards

Turnkey motion control across single or multi-axes.

Prodigy® Machine Control Boards provide high-performance board-level motion control for scientific, lab automation, medical device, industrial, and robotic applications. Available in PCI, PC/104, stand-alone, and machine controller configurations, these boards support multiple motors, including Brushless DC, step, and DC Brush motors. And they are available in 1, 2, 3, and 4-axis configurations. Programmable versions of the board include PMD Corp.’s C-Motion Engine (CME) that allows developer code to run directly on the board—off-loading the system host or enabling stand-alone operation.

Based on our industry-leading Magellan® ICs, these machine control boards provide user-selectable profile modes, including S-curve, trapezoidal, velocity contouring, and electronic gearing, with on-the-fly parameter change. Servo loop compensation utilizes a full 32-bit position error, PID with velocity and acceleration feedforward, integration limit and dual biquad filters for sophisticated control of complex loads. The machine controller version has on-card Atlas® digital amplifiers that eliminate the need for external amplifiers along with enhanced analog and digital I/O.

Included with every Prodigy Machine Control Board is the Pro-Motion GUI which makes it easy to set up and analyze system parameters and motion performance. PMD Corp.’s C-Motion and VB-Motion language simplifies the program development process and enables the use of industry standard C/C++ or Visual Basic programming languages.

Prodigy features

Uses our advanced Magellan motion IC processor
PCI, PC/104, stand-alone, and machine-controller configurations
Available in 1, 2, 3, and 4-axis configurations
Supports DC Brush, Brushless DC, and step motors
S-curve, trapezoidal, electronic gearing, and velocity-contouring
PC/104 (ISA), PCI-bus, Ethernet, CANbus, or serial communications
Advanced PID filter with feedforward and dual biquad filters
High-speed loop rate: 50 μsec/axis • Up to 256 microsteps per full step resolution
Incremental quadrature and Absolute SSI encoder support
Includes Pro-Motion®, C-Motion®, and VB-Motion® development software
6-step commutation and field oriented control modes
High-precision 16-bit DAC or PWM amplifier output
General purpose digital I/O and analog I/O
Two directional limit switches, plus high-speed index, and home inputs per axis

Programmable C-Motion Engine Versions

Board-level execution of C-Motion code
Downloaded user application code runs at 96 MIPs
C-Motion Engine development tools

Machine Controller Version

On-board high-performance Atlas amplifiers
Extensive fault detection including over & undervoltage, motor short, and overtemp
Up to 1KW peak output power per axis
Single voltage supply drives motors and board logic

Prodigy/CME Stand-Alone Machine Control Board

Our Prodigy ®/CME Stand-Alone Machine Control Boards provide machine designers and engineers the capability to download and run motion programs directly on Prodigy boards. This capability off-loads the PC host and increases the flexibility to distribute motion programs throughout the machine. Programs can be downloaded to the Prodigy board over UDP and TCP Ethernet protocols, in addition to serial and CAN bus protocols. They communicate via 16-bit parallel, Ethernet, serial, and CAN bus. PMD Corp.’s Prodigy/CME Stand-Alone boards offer advanced motion control for scientific, lab automation, industrial, and robotic applications. Our motion control boards support multiple motor types, including Brushless DC, step, and DC Brush. Prodigy/CME Stand-Alone boards are also available in 1, 2, 3, and 4-axis versions.

Learn More

Get started creating your next design prototype using a Machine Controller Developer Kit