New sensors for connected machinery

A presentation by Director of technology solutions, B&R Industrial Automation Corp., Corey Morton recently centered on the crucial role of sensors and related devices for Connected Machinery, the Smart Factory and Industry 4.0. He used as an example a wraparound case packer and pointed to sensors ranging from proximity sensors to machine vision sensors—also think bar code readers that play a role as well—to passive radio-frequency identification tags to devices that provide readouts of temperature, voltages, positioning, frequency and voltage.

With that in mind, we present three new photoelectric sensors that provide the crucial data for quantitative and qualitative indication of what’s happening on a packaging production line.

First up is a new range of compact ultrasonic sensors, constructed of thermoplastic or stainless steel (both shown above), introduced this month by Carlo Gavazzi. The sensors provide long sensing distances up to 800mm, in spite of their compact thread length of just fractionally more than 38mm. The sensors are IP67 rated, and digital and analog output versions are available.

Color sensors for automation applications from EMX Industries Inc. provide verification differentiated by color. The ColorMax-1000 provides faster sensing with greater control in seeing up to 15 colors in Red-Green-Blue intensity. A new white balance adjustment feature allows the entry of correction factors applied to the RGB color measurements through adjustment of sensor readings. Traditional color sensors output only a “match/no match” condition, but the ColorMax-1000 also outputs the analog values for each RGB reading: It’s not just color, it signals how much color, to enable tighter control. A Windows application program (as shown above) makes set-up and color recognition programming easy.

The latest self-contained Model S18-2 photoelectric sensor from Banner Engineering is available in fixed-field background suppression mode configurations. The compact, self-contained sensors provide up to six detection ranges from 30mm to 200mm applicable to diverse cost-sensitive and high-volume applications. S18-2 sensors feature a highly visible output, and dual-function power and stability indicators.