Abstract
This paper presents wireless sensing systems to increase safety and robustness in industrial process control, particularly in industrial machines for marble slab working. The process is performed by abrasive or cutting heads activated independently by the machine controller when the slab, transported on a conveyer belt, is under them. Current slab detection systems are based on electromechanical or optical devices at the machine entrance stage, suffering from deterioration and from the harsh environment. Slab displacement or break inside the machine due to the working stress may result in safety issues and damages to the conveyer belt due to incorrect driving of the working tools. The experimented contactless sensing techniques are based on four RFID and two capacitive sensing technologies and on customized hardware/software. The proposed solutions aim at overcoming some limitations of current state-of-the-art detection systems, allowing for reliable slab detection, outside and/or inside the machine, while maintaining low complexity and at the same time robustness to industrial harsh conditions. The proposed sensing devices may implement a wireless or wired sensor network feeding detection data to the machine controller. Data integrity check and process control algorithms have to be implemented for the safety and reliability of the overall industrial process.
Highlights
E transformation of stone blocks coming from quarries into nished products, for example, tiles, sculptures, building materials, stone powder, and so forth, is performed through several different industrial processes
Slabs are a erwards polished in a polishing machine [2], cut into smaller and regular slabs by means of cutting machines, and nally become end products. e process control of marble slab working is nowadays mainly based on a feedforward control scheme: the marble slab is transported inside the machine by a conveyer belt; at the entrance of the machine, contact or optical sensing technologies are used to derive information on the presence and shape of the slab which are used by the machine controlling system to drive the working heads on the slab when it is passing under them
On the contrary this work exploits RFID wireless technologies both for contactless multipoint sensing and wireless data communication; the work proposes and examines the use of multipoint capacitive sensing techniques. For both RFID- and capacitive-based sensing applications, hardware and so ware components have been developed or COTS devices have been characterized and proposed for an integration within the machine process control architecture. is approach is supported by experimental campaigns on sensor performance using both sensing wireless technologies (RFID and capacitive) and considering working environments representative of those found in real industrial applications
Summary
E transformation of stone blocks coming from quarries into nished products, for example, tiles, sculptures, building materials, stone powder, and so forth, is performed through several different industrial processes. On the contrary this work exploits RFID wireless technologies both for contactless multipoint sensing and wireless data communication; the work proposes and examines the use of multipoint capacitive sensing techniques For both RFID- and capacitive-based sensing applications, hardware and so ware components have been developed or COTS (commercial off the shelf) devices have been characterized and proposed for an integration within the machine process control architecture. Is approach is supported by experimental campaigns on sensor performance using both sensing wireless technologies (RFID and capacitive) and considering working environments representative of those found in real industrial applications
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