Hello ,

I am looking for some design ideas and suggestions on how to go about building a low cost profile generator for use with machine tools.
This would be used to linearly interpolate or circularly interpolate movements of two axis using a 8051 derivative.
The layout I am envisaging is as follows :
a)The 8051 CPU module computes the velocity and the position of the intermediate points of the profile and transmits to the drive.
b)The communications between the 8051 CPU module and the drive module could be through an industry standard bus ( preferably CAN ).

This may sound simplistic , but as I said it is extrememly preliminary and I would appreciate feedback on whether it is a valid design. Or is the 8051 a non-starter because of 8 bit architecture ?

Thomas