These Human-Machine Interfaces are used in the interaction with different types of textile machines like (ring) spinning or winding machines, controlling operation of the machines as well the processes, data storage and management. The operator configures the most important winding parameters on the control unit and gets data that serves for assessment of the machine's operation behavior and is stored for further analysis. Data such as machine configuration, quality and cleaning parameters as well as material data is graphically displayed for easy recognition and operation. All production data is logged individually and summarily. Lists of the causes of any possible failures allow the operators to eliminate sources of error fast and specifically.

The HMI design described here houses an 800x600 pixel TFT with integrated keyboard (touch input) protected an aluminum front panel covered with a printed plastic film. The electronics consist of two main components: An ESM™ Embedded System Module (a complete computer on a single board) and a carrier board for the remaining functions like physical interfaces for the field busses etc. and the power supply. All permanent connections are done at the rear of the system. Located at the front and protected against dust by a cover, a fast printer, an RS232 debug/service connection and optionally a CAN interface are available. The rear side of the HMI provides further interfaces such as one or two Fast Ethernet lines, another CAN interface, another two to four COMs and the 24V supply.

The HMI's electronics are based on a powerful, low-dissipation PowerPC® MPC 8245 processor. For scalable memory configuration it provides an SO-DIMM socket for data and a CompactFlash® slot for program storage. I/O functionality can also be scaled: it comprises various COMs, Ethernet, CAN etc. -- with CAN, several UARTs and graphics implemented in an FPGA. Additional I/O functionality can be realized in a very flexible and cost-effective way by extending the FPGA. The HMI runs Embedded Linux or real-time operating systems. The Java implementation allows both local operation and access via any type of network, i.e. also the Internet.