Mitsubishi iQ-R controllers, for machine control & data aggregation.

Mitsubishi Electric UK has announced the availability of its revolutionary ‘next generation’ iQ Platform, the iQ-R Controller Series.  Mitsubishi understands that today’s manufacturing environment is complex and fraught with competitive challenges, and the  future will be more challenging as  manufacturers contemplate concepts such as Big Data and the Internet of Things (IoT).

With Mitsubishi Electric’s e-F@ctory concept reinforced within the new iQ-R series, manufacturers can approach these challenges better prepared and can get ahead of their competitors.  The iQ-R’s designed benefits from the use of forty seven new patents.

Software protection

Protection of your business, know-how and manufacturing processes are increasingly important and iQ-R has been designed to meet these needs bringing peace of mind to its users. The continuing threat from external unauthorised access to control systems has led Mitsubishi Electric to design the iQ-R with various protective features such as IP address filtering to prevent unapproved access to the system.  Know-how is protected with strengthened password and program encryption; production can be protected by easy, flexible and cost effective system configuration with redundant CPUs using standard CPU technology.

Added to this is Mitsubishi’s well known focus on backward compatibility where existing installed hardware can continue to be utilized well in to the future and you have a picture of a programmable control concept that is designed to reduce Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) from all facets of the business.

Programming support is provided by the new GX Works3, perfectly complimenting iQ-R with its multi-language interface, and ideal for companies with international businesses, while its other innovative functions help significantly reduce development time through effective reuse of existing software assets.

Speed, performance, excellence

Speed is also a keyword with iQ-R Series. Not only are the processors optimized for consistent, reliable manufacturing operation, and are up to eight times faster than the earlier QCPU, but when combined with the new high speed bus, users will see an increased throughput of around 40 times the current iQ Platform which was already one of the fastest systems on the market.

This massive speed increase means manufacturing with greater response which can be used to increase quality through more rapid reaction to changes in parameters, perform greater control and co-ordination between complex motion tasks or even greater resolution for energy management tasks such as load balancing or peak management for example. iQ-R really is putting its users in control.

Reduced engineering time means faster to market

The deliberate and structured reduction in engineering load starts with the programming interface GX Works3 which increases program re-use whilst providing advanced options for monitoring and fault diagnosis but also increased options for protecting and managing the users programming assets.

Additionally, iQ-R series has new features for auto-saving operational data especially error flags and occurrences so that maintenance engineers can quickly diagnose operational performance from the stored historical data. The new memory dump feature allows active information to be automatically saved to the SD card detailing timing and error conditions, and status information; protecting this vital data even if the most serious event occurs.

In summary, MELSEC iQ-R Series is a strong successor of the original iQ Platform extending its features and functions while reducing engineering effort. It has been designed to optimize all aspects affecting TCO while delivering outstanding performance. Its data aggregation, processing and programming flexibility along with the future road-map of extensive functions, modules and options while continuously supporting existing legacy systems means that iQ-R should be in the toolbox of any serious automation engineer who wants to tackle the future challenges.

Key figures/data:
CPU options: 5 models with varying program capacity from 40 to 1200k Steps
Typical processing speed: Basic instruction 0.98ns
Memory: SD card and optional SRAM cassette
Programming environment: GX Works3
Compatibility: backward compatible with iQ Platform
Typical use: high speed processing of data, positional operations and process industries and complex machine control

Mitsubishi Electric PAC MELSEC iQ-R Engineering Movie

See Mitsubishi Electric PAC MELSEC iQ-R Promotion Movie on YouTube

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