DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF LABVIEW BASED SCADA FOR TEXTILE MILLS

Abstract

Quality is the watchword of any type of business. A product without quality leads to lack of customer satisfaction and ultimately to loss. This is true in case of textile industries also. In textile industries, quality maintenance is one of the major problems for fabric manufacturers. Currently in indigenous small scale textile industries manual or semi- automatic processes are being carried out. The fabric obtained from such processes lacks consistency in quality, moreover these industries have semi- skilled or unskilled labors, therefore stringent supervision is required. Normal automation solutions for such industries will be unaffordable. Therefore it is required to provide economical, reliable and robust automation solution to such industries. This paper addresses the need of factory automation within the scope of machine control for small scale textile industries. The project presents the design of LabVIEW based SCADA system for centralized control. It makes use of PLC as a field controller to operate the prototype design of Stenter Machine, widely used in textile industries. LabVIEW, which is a commonly accepted graphical user interface environment, also provides HMI front end. The PLC controller and the LabVIEW based SCADA are communicating through the RS-232 link. The control system is flexible and modular. Due to the intuitive programming of LabVIEW, this system is cost efficient and reliable solution for automation of small scale textile industries.