Assurance of interoperability between devices from different manufacturers

sercos conformance tests are carried out by an authorized test lab at the Institute for Control Engineering of Machine Tools and Manufacturing Units (ISW) at the University of Stuttgart supported by the Steinbeis Transferzentrum für Systemtechnik (TZS) in Esslingen.

The sercos Conformizer is used for the official conformity test for slave and master implementations, which is the basis of formal certification.

The sercos Conformizer can also be purchased by manufacturers to check their product’s conformance with specifications during the development of sercos products. This reduces development time and optimizes the formal conformity tests. 

A PCI card is used as the test hardware for the sercos Conformizer. The graphical user interface accesses the sercos driver via a DLL interface. The test cases can be configured using a script language and run automatically.

Test results are output directly in a test protocol and can be used as proof of conformity. Using the script language and configurable IDN database it is possible to easily adjust and extend the test cases and also integrate manufacturerspecific tests.

The manufacturer receives an official certificate of conformity from sercos International after the conformity test has been passed.

In addition to the conformity tests, free Plug Fests are carried out regularly in which a group of different manufacturers can test their sercos devices against each other for interoperability.