Automation technology from B&R makes it easy to achieve precise synchronization of conveyor belts and robots. The company’s readily configurable PLCopen function blocks can be used to implement conveyor belt tracking. An increasing number of processes in production lines require synchronization with conveyor belts. The length and speed of conveyors are useful for buffering or matching the output and input capacities of different types of machines or operations so that operations are continuous without stoppage. Ensuring the high levels of speed and precision needed to accomplish this used to require highly complex control solutions. Production lines with conveyor belt tracking have an advantage since the production process never comes to a stop – they can achieve higher production volumes.
The complexity of these systems is constantly increasing, with the presence of robots becoming more and more common. The robotic tasks can range from simple sorting to
complex product processing on running conveyor belts. The PLCopen function blocks from B&R can be used for all types ofrobot kinematics andevenallowrobots tobe synchronized
with multiple conveyor belts. The interfaces are also ideally suited for integrating HMI applications for all types of kinematic systems. The robot can move freely during the synchronization phase, which also enables complex product manipulation. A special feature of the B&R solution is that the conveyor belt is fully integrated in the application. An external sensorthat supplies information aboutthe current position of the conveyor belt is all that is needed.
The conveyor belttracking solution from B&R is hardwareindependent,which allows the use of different drive systems with different kinematics. The application can be created quickly and easily upgraded at a latertime. The robot can be replaced or the conveyor belts can be upgraded at any time without a significant amount of application engineering work. A large portion of the software can be re-used as is.
