Sioux Technologies—Solutions for Mechatronics Systems

Sioux Technologies has more than 45 years of experience developing product concepts and working with clients through the entire development process to realize a finished product or installed production equipment. The company offers expertise in mechanical engineering, (opto-)physics, electrical and electronic engineering, and information technology. The development process enables customers to control the costs for realizing functionality, performance, and time to market. 

Sioux Technologies uses model-based system design with MATLAB^® products to evaluate and develop mechatronic solutions for small- and medium-sized series. This approach results in an open architecture with high flexibility and functional transparency. Configurations are built up using standardized components. For example, customers can compose a dedicated host PC-based man-machine interface for powerful diagnostics using the GUIDE tool in MATLAB.

To enable fast development of advanced high-tech equipment, Sioux Technologies uses a customizable real-time software application for motion control titled Sioux Advanced fleXible Control Solutions (SAXCS). Using SAXCS, Sioux Technologies can conduct complex system integration services by creating motion control software parallel to mechanics and electronics development. SAXCS’ features enable the design of high controller bandwidths, MIMO control, iterative learning control, and setpoint shaping. It connects to the system behavior layer via a Sioux proprietary communication framework (AxChange) and the sensor/actuator layer via EtherCAT. 

The SAXCS IDE, based on Simulink^® Real-Time™, enables control engineers to compose and verify the motion control application. They can deploy the controller on the target using code generation tools. Based on the interface files, application programming interfaces are generated automatically for MATLAB and other programming languages (C++, C#, Python, LabVIEW, and more).

The modular infrastructure allows the creation and interaction of multiple motion axes. The vast available reference architecture templates and extensive SAXCS building block libraries facilitate control strategy design and quick validation on a customer’s integrated MATLAB and Simulink model or actual hardware. The platform integrates tools for managing module behavior, configurability, tuning, and diagnostics. Combining the built-in configurable user interface and the automation languages creates limitless possibilities for integration, calibration, diagnostics, service, and maintenance.