Celebrating their 40th anniversary, Beckhoff Automation continues to expand and build on its reputation for advanced entertainment technology by bridging connectivity with creative interfaces. “We have a powerful toolbox for automation and control that can be useful to entertainment engineers,” says Michel Matuschke. It’s something of an understatement.
Hudson Scenic Studios, based in Yonkers, NY, is one of their customers. “They handle automated stage design for many Broadway shows and other theatrical performances. Most notably, they automated the set for the Hamilton completely with PC-based control technology from Beckhoff,” says Matuschke. “Tait, Flying by Foy and SGPS/ShowRig, which all use our technology to automate stage equipment, regularly produce major concerts and shows around the globe for the top stars in music and entertainment.” Clients all over the globe are adopting their products. “For example, Simtec in Germany is creating 4D cinemas for theme parks and kinetic multi-screen displays.”
Matuschke, market manager for entertainment and media technology, is enthusiastic about the advantages of off-the-shelf automation products for our industry. “It’s a special market,” he says. “Customers in all markets benefit from high quality, high performance and long term available products.” Largely due to the rapid adoption of PC Control and EtherCAT, the entertainment industry has grown into one of the top vertical market segments for Beckhoff USA, with numerous high profile applications in the unique submarkets of theme parks, stage/theater, concerts, sporting events, television and film. “You are certain to have experienced live events and televised programming with Beckhoff equipment automating the production behind the scenes.”
Today, Beckhoff Automation employs approximately 4,350 people globally and has 39 subsidiaries around the world, each with many of their own regional offices strategically located across each country to provide local support to machine and equipment builders, end users and engineering firms. Many Beckhoff applications are in the entertainment industry, with numerous published references worldwide. In the U.S., they have a broad presence with regional offices and training sessions across the country. And their global success necessitated expanding their German production facilities by a total of 430,500 square feet in 2018.
History
The company’s history of creating automation systems based on PC Control Technology goes back to its founding by Hans Beckhoff in Germany in 1980. Beckhoff USA began operations in 1999, which is when they introduced PC-based control technology to North America after a successful introduction in Europe. The subsidiary was founded by Gerd Hoppe and Jörg Rottkord, who still work for Beckhoff today at the global headquarters in Verl, Germany. “After a short foray into distribution, Beckhoff USA quickly adopted a direct sales model that is maintained to this day,” explains Matuschke. After the foundation of Beckhoff Automation LLC by Hoppe and Rottkord, Graham Harris succeeded Hoppe as president in 2004. The current president of Beckhoff USA is Kevin Barker, who was previously director of sales for the motion division of Yaskawa America, Inc., which manufactures servos, motion controllers, AC motor drives, and industrial robots. Beckhoff’s U.S. headquarters is located in Savage, MN, just south of Minneapolis. “The U.S. operation is supported by 161 employees, and we have engineering sales and support across the country.”
The plan in establishing Beckhoff USA was simple enough: it was to replicate the success seen in Europe by providing automation systems to machine builder OEMs that serve a variety of vertical industries across the U.S. “Soon the company expanded its business to work directly with equipment providers and end users, including in the entertainment industry.” The U.S. market has responded as they hoped it would. “Beckhoff has grown market share considerably since the subsidiary’s founding and the company has become synonymous with PC-based control and EtherCAT, the industrial Ethernet protocol we introduced in 2003.” In addition to the entertainment market, other key markets for the company include intralogistics, packaging, food and beverage, metalworking, plastics, and assembly. (A fun overview of all the company does is found in a 45 second YouTube video; you can watch it at plsn.me/Beck45.)
Matuschke says that most of their core entertainment industry products are used widely, while others are typically used in one of the submarkets. But they have a lot in common. “The key that nearly every customer of our technology is looking for is connectivity to creative interfaces,” he says. “We have a powerful toolbox for automation and control that can be useful to entertainment engineers responsible for automating stage and show equipment. With DMX, Art-Net, sACN, SMPTE-Timecode and PosiStageNet, we offer the full range of interfaces to connect any light console or other creative tool to our automation system.” This makes the Beckhoff platform, based on TwinCAT 3 automation software, optimal for engineers in the entertainment industry. The AV control interfaces Beckhoff started with and has continued to offer over time include PJ-Link, AES 70 (OCA) and many others.
Next to the specific core products for the entertainment market, Beckhoff also offers a wide range of standard automation products that specific sub-markets regularly implement. An example would be their range of motion control products with integrated functional safety in stage and show or their compact motors and drives in theme parks.
Present and Future
The company’s new developments for the entertainment industry include a recently launched interface to QSC. “This allows the system integrator not only to control QSC devices, but also to collect data from the QSC devices and to communicate commands to our system,” Matuschke says. Another hot topic is the connectivity to graphical tools or 3D tools. “For example, it is possible to send information about movements from tools like Maya, Blender or Conductor to our system. This is especially exciting for theme park applications.”
The company’s dedication to offering a platform for system integrators that enables creativity, especially with the broad range of interfaces to industry standards is unwavering. “There are several applications only possible when using New Automation Technology from Beckhoff. Kinetic Rain, an art installation in Singapore’s Changi Airport, is a perfect example,” he says. Check out how cool this is on YouTube (www.plsn.me/K-rain), and you’ll see how PC-based automation and EtherCAT control 1,216 axes of motion in real time to raise and lower raindrop-shaped weights, making fluid coordinated motion and recognizable shapes like an airplane. “The content for this ‘3D-TV’ can be easily generated in a graphical interface,” Matuschke notes. Other Beckhoff applications are in theme parks, where animatronics require extremely realistic movements for human or animal characters.
While they are understandably proud of what’s been done, there is still more innovating to do. “Beckhoff provides the optimal platform for system integrators, whether creating single tasks in one of the sub-markets or building an overall control platform that covers multiple disciplines,” Matuschke concludes. “With this flexibility, our technology lends itself to system integrators in applications spanning the entire entertainment industry.”
For more information, go to www.beckhoffautomation.com/stage.
