Abstract
As motion control applications advance in capability and sophistication it is necessary to package motion application behaviors in a manner that allows a developer to manipulate more and more abstract "building blocks" yet retain the flexibility to solve a unique problem with special requirements. Behaviors of interest to motion application developers include electronic cam operation, tangent servoing, and robot kinematics to name a few.There are also needs for user interface behaviors such as joystick controls, motion renderings, curve editors and virtual instruments. These building blocks need to be so simple to use that they can be "dropped" into an application, yet accessible enough to be altered to meet a specific application need. The concept of building an application from standard building blocks is familiar for mechanical and electronic systems but has been elusive for the software system.
The objective of this talk is to provide an overview of what can now be done with software components as they relate to motion control applications. The following sections discuss Software Component Background, Component Mechanisms, Component Categories and Summary. Example applications are presented which demonstrate the benefits of developing with software components.