transmitted reliably and without interference or distortion to the plant control system.
That in itself may be enough for considerable sustainability benefits to be achieved, but thanks to new technological advances, even more can be done. Until very recently, converting the huge amount of data collected by sensors in modern plants into a usable and useful form required specially developed plant-specific software; the expense of developing this software was rarely justified. However, easyto-use yet versatile software solutions, such as ifm’ s moneo system, are available now. These incorporate powerful‘ wizards’, allowing users to configure them easily to suit their requirements.
that, in appropriate applications, are very effective. The reduction in cost also means that checks can be carried out more frequently across the whole manufacturing process.
An example is a laser line-scan system, which uses a laser beam to measure and store the profile of a known good component. Profiles of subsequent components are compared with this, and even small deviations can be detected. This means that problems due to, for example, worn tooling can be detected before they reach the stage where components have to be scrapped or expensively reworked.
Another alternative to a full vision system is a 2D vision sensor. In addition to being less costly, the best of these are very easy to set up, taking no more than a few minutes in straightforward applications. Despite their ease of use, these versatile devices can check patterns, shapes, areas, dimensions, contours and even target contrast, either as individual parameters or in combination. Once again, this allows developing problems to be spotted early before they lead to scrapped products and wasted materials.
These novel systems typically provide flow modelling, automatic alarm generation, and fully customisable user interfaces that allow plant and machine information to be presented in numeric, graphical or dashboard formats, according to the user’ s requirements. Also provided are powerful features for analysing and summarising the data collected by the system, which makes it easy to spot trends over time that may reveal slow declines in plant performance and efficiency, leading to energy and material wastage.
Modern sensors provide the information needed to achieve efficient, sustainable operation in machines, plants and processes of all kinds. IO-Link provides an effective and convenient way of collecting the information from the sensors and feeding it to the control system, and the new generation of configurable plant monitoring software allows even more value to be squeezed from the data by converting it into useful, readily accessible information.
So, when you’ re next thinking about upgrading the sustainability of your operations, keep sensors in mind. And if you’ d like additional guidance on choosing the right sensing technology for your specific applications, don’ t hesitate to contact ifm electronic. We’ ll be delighted to help!
Adding or upgrading sensors in manufacturing plant clearly has the potential for gaining sustainability benefits, but there’ s an elephant in the room! How should all of the additional data produced by these new and / or enhanced sensors be collected and handled? The answer to the first part of the question is relatively simple: networked sensors using the well-established IO-Link technology will minimise the need for additional field wiring. They will also ensure that all the data collected by the sensors is www. ifm. com
22 AUTOMATION, CONTROL & ENGINEERING