CANopen in the Lift Industry

Thanks to many advantages offered by standardized bus systems industry tends to use them in the networking of electronic components. This is significant not only in the lift industry, but also in the automation, car and facility management industries etc. As examples take EIB, EHS or LON in the facility management or CAN, Profibus and Interbus, (and with growing importance Ethernet), in the automation industry. It is not only the bus-system itself but also the protocol used which is important in its success.

In the lift industry the bus systems CAN and LON have become established in preference to all others. Up until now it has not been possible to combine components of different makes of lift equipment in a complete system, as the industry only uses manufacturer-specific protocols on the bus. At the Interlift exhibition in Augsburg, 2001 initial discussions took place between different manufacturers of lift-components. They talked about standardizing the protocols for the CAN-Bus. By the end of 2001, beginning of 2002 they met several times and agreed to use the profile-families CANopen as a basis. CANopen is a standardized application for distributed industrial automation systems based on CAN, and on the communication standard CAL. CANopen is a standard of CAN-in-Automation (CiA) and has gained broad currency since its availability. Lead management is done by the CiA-organisation coordinating the worldwide work on the CANopen system. Within CiA, a Special Interest Group (SIG) “Lift”, subdivided in teams for each single profile, checks the profiles available with regard to their suitability for the lift industry, including possible extensions and new definitions.

Targets of CANopen in the Lift Industry

The target of the Special Interest Group is the harmonization of component-protocols based on CANopen, thus enabling the use of components of different manufacturers on one common bus. Furthermore, it enables the use of harmonized diagnostic tools or the integration of standard components of the automation industry. Today there are some control systems and a number of different makes of components which are compatible with this protocol. BÖHNKE + PARTNER already supplied more than 5800 lifts with this technology, till January 2011. Having recognized the capability of CANopen we are currently developing more components based on this technology. Learn more about CANopen in the lift industry from the website of the CANopen-Lift Community under www.CANopen-Lift.org.