... now available with BiSS®-C high-speed serial communications

Renishaw’s new RESOLUTE™ absolute optical encoder is now available with BiSS®-C high-speed serial communications, an open protocol that is available on a range of industry-standard servo drives, controllers, counter cards and encoders, promoting healthy competition between device manufacturers. With pure serial high-speed communications up to 10 MHz, BiSS-C allows motion system developers to take full advantage of RESOLUTE’s market-leading resolution of just 1 nanometre at up to 100 m/s for both linear encoder and angle encoder applications.

The need for an open serial standard
Modern absolute encoders communicate using pure serial digital signals, which facilitate combinations of very high speeds and super-fine resolutions, whilst ensuring excellent immunity to electro-magnetic interference. Absolute encoders also have the benefit of knowing position immediately upon switch-on, eliminating reference returns and providing instant commutation for direct-drive linear or rotary motors.

However, historically absolute encoders had a hidden down-side; several industry-standard serial communications protocols were developed by encoder manufacturers with the intention of locking out competitors and the lack of alternatives meant that some were adopted by controller manufacturers. This situation was compounded by the uncompetitive open protocols (such as SSI) which were outdated and outperformed when it came to precision motion control. Overall it was not the ideal environment for motion system designers to achieve their performance specifications at competitive prices.

This was the market situation that led IC-Haus to develop the BiSS high-speed serial communications open protocol which can be licensed free-of-charge by encoder and controller manufacturers. The result is healthier competition between encoder manufacturers, and technical benefits of high data rates up to 10 MHz, low latency, fast repetition rates and data propagation delay compensation. Such is the appeal of BiSS, that currently over 150 device manufacturers have licensed the free-of-charge BiSS Interface Intellectual Property, services and tools.