Development of remote monitoring and control system for mechatronics engineering practice: The case of flexible manufacturing system

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to design a test set with remote access so that it can be used in laboratory applications in a multidisciplinary engineering education. The test set equipment used in the study consists of work stations that belong to the flexible manufacturing system, which is designed by the Festo Didactic Company. The flexible manufacturing system is a didactic set for mechatronics training. It can be used with different configurations and training purposes. In this study, the flexible manufacturing system set has nine work stations with different functions from each other. These stations such as distributing, testing, processing, handling, sorting, etc. can be worked alone and together with several assembly line configurations. In the developed didactic model, the existing equipment of the system such as mechanical and electrical infrastructure was used. Control of all the stations was realized by designing PIC 18F4580 and 18F2585 microcontrollers-based hardware. Control area network was used as the communication protocol between the work stations of the flexible manufacturing system. Online monitoring and real-time control operations for all parameters of the designed system were performed over the software which was developed using the LabVIEW program. Users who are connected to the system via the Internet can control the system using the designed LabVIEW-based software. Furthermore, they can upload–download their programs which will be written by them to the system via the Internet, and they can see the results of their own operational scenarios. Thus, the system with its developed structure is not restricted to existing operational scenarios for students. Hence, it has gained flexibility by allowing students to try their programs remotely. Also, in order to obtain feedback about the designed structure of the didactic system, a survey, conducted on 29 engineering students, was realized. The presented structure of the mechatronic didactic system was found to be successful by the students who joined the survey.