Evaulation_Engineering_August_2020 - 26

INSTRUMENTATION

EMPOWERING INDUSTRIAL
AUTOMATION WITH
ADVANCED SENSING
by Don Welch
Industry 4.0 is hot, and it's gaining
traction daily because optimizing
automated production systems doesn't
just save energy, reduce downtime, and
improve yields, it saves a lot of money for
those very same reasons. A company with
a facility operating at 90% efficiency will
outperform a company whose production
is only at 80% of its potential, all other
things being roughly equal. Better systems save money, energy, and resources
at every level, with cascading benefits.
These cascading benefits are like a
good version of the horseshoe nail story.
In the original story, the loss of a nail
cost a kingdom. In the new Industry 4.0
paradigm, the horse is smart and selfmonitoring, and provided the rider a
predictive maintenance alert about the
loose horseshoe. Smart tools empower
intelligent processes and precision is
the grail of any toolmaker. There is no
precision without feedback, and accurate, efficient, and functional sensing is
a critical enabler.
Systems for the precise measurement
and control of products and processes,

Typical Complete System
showing Probe, antenna,
receiver and programming
interface. Battery is not
shown

and for the development and
implementation of automated
manufacturing, assembly, and
complex machinery operation, are the
new solutions for Industry 4.0 applications. Recently, MTI Instruments created
a Bluetooth 2.4GHz wireless capacitivegap sensor, believed to be the first such
device of its type. It's paired with a receiving device to accurately measure the distance to a grounded metal target, to address precision manufacturing processes.
Bluetooth was chosen, as it has already
been proven to work in noisy industrial
environments and is immune to jamming
by other wireless devices.
The transmitter can be permanently
mounted on a fixture, or on a threaded
probe holder using two jam nuts. The
probe/transmitter unit has one connector for the antenna, and a second connector to attach the battery for portable
operation The receiver communicates
with up to 4 wireless displacement sensors to receive displacement readings,
and interfaces as a RS-485 Modbus RTU
device which is ideal for PLC interfacing.

Single-channel
capacitance wireless
probe system

We should note here that what we refer to as a "receiver" and "transmitter"
is a bit of an oversimplification. Both
the "transmitter" sensor and "receiver"
are both, in fact, transceivers that can
transmit as well as receive. For example, one receiver can interrogate up to
4 separate "transmitter" sensors which
allows the user to see rotor tilt, and rotor wear such as a bow in the shape of
the rotor. The receiver can also transmit
to a sensor and change its sample rate,
filtering characteristic, or even check on
the transmitter's remaining battery life.
A "start sample" command is sent to
the selected sensor to begin receiving
data at a selected rate. For single samples, a manual sample sequence command can be executed at any point. The
sample sequence puts the sensor into
a powered-on state for a single sample
cycle. Upon completion of the cycle, the
sensor transmits the data and goes back
to a low-power state.
Both the transmitter "sensor" and
receiver devices are "Bluetooth" radio frequency transceivers, capable
of transmitting and receiving digital
packet messages. Multiple sensor and
receiver devices may be operated in a
close environment as they will not interfere with each other. Users can program
and calibrate the probe assemblies with
MTI-provided software.

Improving manufacturing
In manufacturing processes, as in everything today, tolerances have tightened up.
Even something as rudimentary as textile
manufacturing, which has been going on
for 50,000 years or more, the control of

EVALUATION ENGINEERING AUGUST 2020

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