February 2020

28 n SPS REPORT Nuremberg show is a name-changer L ast November’s SPS automation show in Nuremberg, Germany, was the 30th in the series and the first to drop the previous SPS IPC Drives title, which was always a bit of a mouthful and had outgrown its relevance. The SPS part of the name came from the German equivalent of PLC, but today’s show covers much more than PLCs, industrial PCs and VSDs. It now encompasses all aspects of industrial automation from software and communications to sensors, edge computing and the cloud. So SPS now stands for Smart Production Solutions. Other than the name, not much has changed. SPS is still the most important dedicated event for the industrial automation sector and the 2019 event attracted 1,585 exhibitors and 63,708 visitors – about 45 fewer exhibitors and 2,000 fewer visitors than in 2018. The slight drop in numbers perhaps reflects the hard year that the German automation sector experienced, with German trade bodies reporting drops in both orders and sales. Even the normally unstoppable Beckhoff Automation ground to a halt after several years of double-digit growth. But CEO Hans Beckhoff is confident that the tide will turn again this year. The slowdown in the German economy also perhaps explains why there were few major product launches at SPS 2019 as companies reined in their r&d budgets. The one significant exception was Bosch Rexroth’s revamp of much of its automation portfolio to create a new open platform called ctrlX which uses EtherCat as its main communications backbone. Areas of technology where there was plenty of activity at SPS included condition monitoring, 5G, digital twins, edge computing, TSN, the cloud and sensing. Over the next few pages, we report on some of the highlights from the show. MOTORS AND DRIVES At SPS, ABB demonstrated a cabinet-based regenerative multi-drive system based on its liquid-cooled ACS880LC drives. The system allows several motors to be driven simultaneously or for energy to be partially regenerated, with the feed-in supplying only the differential energy. If an application generates more energy than is being consumed by the motors, then the excess energy can be fed back into the grid. Brake choppers and resistors are not needed. Last November’s SPS show in Nuremberg reflected a tough year for the German automation industry. But there was still plenty to see and discuss at the event. February 2020 www.drivesncontrols.com Credit: Mesago/Malte Kirchner