Research and Applications: Embedded System

Volume 3 Issue 2

Automation for Belt Conveyor System

Puhspendra Kumar*, Basanta Mahato
Department of Electronics and Communication Department, IIMT College of Engineering,
Greater Noida, U.P., India
Corresponding Author
E-Mail Id: [email protected]

ABSTRACT
Automation of a belt conveyor system is proposed in this paper. We have proposed an idea
related to IoT using different sensor interface. The PID controller is connected with the main
controlling and monitoring unit through a cloud using Wi-Fi module which send the real time
data obtained from the different sensors on the system by the PID controller to the cloud. The
existing system can be used in every automation industry.

Keywords: speed controlling, PID controller, belt conveyor system

INTRODUCTION requiring low cost when contrasted with

Conveyor Systems are mechanical gadgets other accessible methods. It runs on two
or congregations that transport material pulleys at two ends and is operated with
with negligible exertion. A conveyor belt the help of a motor[2].
is a basic apparatus in the material
handling sector. They are the persistent Different Types of automated conveyor
moving strips that are utilized for belts used in indifferent sectors as per the
conveying various materials starting with requirement such as:- Flat Belt Conveyors,
one spot then onto the next. Mostly used Modular Belt Conveyors, Cleated Belt
for conveying a large volume of materials Conveyors, Other Specialty Conveyor Belt
in a short span of time. An Industrial Types, Curved Belt Conveyors, Incline or
Conveyor belt system comprises two or Decline Belt Conveyors, Sanitary and
more pulleys. A continuous loop of Wash down Conveyors etc. Current trends
transport stream the conveyor belt pivots include energy efficiency, electric
about them. This system minimizes human actuation and predictive maintenance[3].
error, lowers workplace risks and reduces
labor costs among other benefits[1]. The world still has a place for “dumb”
conveyors that simply move product from
A conveyor belt comprises of three X to Y, but Today’s generation of
primary parts: belt, pulley, and driving conveyors is much different than what was
unit. Conveyor belt are comprised of available a decade ago. There is increased
thermoplastics, metal, elastic, texture and demand for conveyors that can talk to the
leather. The belt moves around the pulley other machines and robots on the line
in a loop for constant use with the Today’s generation of conveyors are much
assistance of a driving unit. The driving different than what was available a decade
unit goes about as the main power source ago. Current trends include energy
which supplies power to different pieces of efficiency, electric actuation and predictive
the conveyor belt. Conveyor belt are maintenance. That’s resulting not just in
intended for passing on mass materials better performance, but also better

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 Research and Applications: Embedded System
Volume 3 Issue 2

monitoring, controlling and reporting. continuous Monitoring[6]. It’s only shows

Further we concluded a system with proper the monitoring ways for the conveyor
control and monitoring so that the system and the big data visualization.
complete system becomes more effective,
and easy to control. The missing parts are the:- Speed control,
heat emitted from the motor calculation to
EXISTING SYSTEM improve efficiency of the system,
Today Conveyor trends -including new maintaining the space in between the final
materials, drives, and pallet-carrying products on the production line, data
variations are used to increase the storage, data visualization, 24×7
efficiency, life, effectiveness, etc of the monitoring, easy to operate . In addition
conveyor system. The vendor now starts our system is capable of monitoring as
the uses of different technology such as well as controlling, also the ability of big
robotics, embedded intelligence, IoT, etc. data visualization, real time monitoring.
for manufacturing the conveyor system. To fulfill the above character our proposed
Developments in software, hardware, and system can be a better solution of existing
advancements in computerization make it systems to achieve industrial automation in
all possible. However, the technology isn’t a better way.
limited to items “added” to conveyors. As
the technology continues to evolve, PROPOSED SYSTEM
products now feature faster speeds, heavier The proposed system where there is a
payloads and greater precision. conveyor belt with the load cell which
continuously reads the weight of the load
Simple use of motor and pulley for on the belt and gives the data to the
conveyor systems in the initial stage but controller on the basis of the weight of the
today there is a lot of technology used for load the controller controls the speed of
the automation of conveyor systems such the conveyor belt. There is a colour sensor
as PLC and SCADA are used for which is attached with the controller which
controlling conveyor systems. “Belt is used to separate the raw material on the
Conveyor Monitoring and Fault basis of the required parameters (colour)
Detecting Using PLC and SCADA” from the running conveyor belt. There is
which refer to, the Faults are identified the Wi-Fi module which sends the real-
using Sensors so that the safe and reliable time data (like load on the belt, total
conveyor operation can be ensured. The quantities of raw material consumed,
PLC is used for automatic segregation and colour detail, size of raw material, the real
directing of the materials and to control time speed of the belt, the temperature of
multiple switches, sensors and the belt, how much quantity should
actuators[5]. produce) to the cloud from where the data
can be taken by the main control unit (PC)
The IOT also comes under existence for and the same data is used as a learning
the automation of conveyor systems. “An material for the complete system.
Application of the IoT in Belt Conveyor
Systems”, it is more about the data which There are some challenges such as power
continuously comes from the sensors used consumption by motor, heating of motor,
in the conveyor system. It is helpful for the problems of belt broken, temperature

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 Research and Applications: Embedded System
Volume 3 Issue 2

maintenance[7]. Our main focus on the fuzzy logic controllers (FLC), particularly
food industries because it is directly Fuzzy PID controllers have been broadly
related to agriculture, farmers, and also to utilized for mechanical procedures
the health of the consumers. Since the inferable from their heuristic nature related
proper controlling and monitoring system with straight forwardness and adequacy for
required where the following parameters both linear and nonlinear systems.
are used such as colour, shape, size, to
separate the raw material for different PID (proportional integral derivative)
process (for e.g.: which types of potato are controllers utilize a control loop feedback
best for the chips and which one for the mechanism to control process factors and
french-fries this separation of potato is are the most exact and stable controller.
done on the basis of the shape, size, colour The fuzzy PID controller is a
of the potato, which minimize the wastage computationally efficient analytic scheme
of potatoes) because these factors of raw suitable for implementation in a real-time
material affect the production[8] such closed-loop digital control in such a
problems of (shape, size, colour detection system. The machine learning is the best
of raw material, temperature/humidity, approach to reduce the human effort in
speed of belt conveyor, total load on the automation sector using machine learning
belt ) can be minimized by using machine is one of the other ways to increase
learning concept for controlling and production in an effective manner, by
monitoring, where the production can be using all these approaches in a conveyor
increased effectively and efficiently[9]. belt automation is to improve the complete
Here fuzzy logic plays an important role. system which direct in the production. The
Where fuzzy logic is a way to deal with best-known controllers used in industrial
processing dependent on " degree of truth control processes are Proportional integral
" as opposed to the standard thing "true or derivative (PID) controllers because of
false"(1 or 0) Boolean logic on which the their simple structure and robust
advanced PC is based[10]. performance in a wide range of operating
conditions. In any case, the PID controller
Fuzzy logic incorporates 0 or 1 as being linear isn't appropriate for
outrageous instances of truth (or " the state emphatically nonlinear system. Fuzzy
of matters” or “fact ") yet additionally Control is frequently referenced as an
remember the different condition of truth option in contrast to PID control. Over all
for between so that, for instance, the our given system for conveyor belt
aftereffect of a correlation between two automation is a centralized control system
things could be not "tall" or "short" yet due to which:-
".38 of tallness"[11]. Most fuzzy  Quick updates are possible
controllers utilized in the business have a  System is physically secure
similar structure as incremental PI or PID  Dedicated resources
controllers. The parameterization utilizing  Data analysis become easy
rules and fuzzy membership capacities  Modification in system is become
makes it simple to include nonlinearities, easy
rationale, and extra input signals to control
law. Along these lines, in recent years

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 Research and Applications: Embedded System
Volume 3 Issue 2

BLOCK DIAGRAM

Each and every block have its own estimations of temperature and
function or it use for specific purpose such moistness as serial data. The sensor is
as :- likewise factory calibrated and thus
 The motor driver is used to provide simple to interface with different
the required power supply to the microcontrollers.
motor, and it is controlled by the  A load cell or weight sensor is one
controller. kind of sensor otherwise a transducer.
 This is an infrared sensor which can The working principle of the weight
be used for obstacle sensing, line sensor depends on the conversion of a
sensing, motion detection and also as load into an electronic signal. Signal
an encoder sensor The sensor provides can be a change in voltage; current
a digital output (1 or 0). The sensor otherwise frequency based on the load
outputs a logic one (+3.5V) at the as well as used circuit. In a digital
digital output when an object is placed load cell, the signals from the strain
in front of the sensor and logic zero gauge (a gadget used to quantify strain
(0V), when there is no object in front on an item) start as analog electrical
of the sensor. An onboard LED is used voltages. A microprocessor within the
to indicate the presence of an object. load cell quickly changes over them to
 The DHT22 is a commonly used digital signals. Those digital signals
Temperature and humidity sensor. generally utilize 2 to 6 volts as their
The sensor accompanies a devoted signal range, which is less susceptible
NTC to quantify temperature and a 8- to variance than the scope of 0.03
piece microcontroller to output the volts in a analogue cell. As it were, the
digital signal is a lot more grounded

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 Research and Applications: Embedded System
Volume 3 Issue 2

 The ESP8266 Wi-Fi Module is a self- conveyor system through which the
contained SOC with integrated speed of the motor is controlled by the
TCP/IP protocol stack that can give controller, hence the power
any microcontroller access to your consumption by the system is
WiFi network. The ESP8266 is automatically decreased upto 20%.
prepared to do either hosting an  As the system is monitoring the
application or offloading all Wi-Fi process continuously it is capable of
organizing functions from another detecting/predicting the faults which
application processor. are helpful as per the maintenance
 Since the controller continuously deals purpose.
with large data taken by the sensors so  The system helps to increase the
to store the large data use of cloud is production of products in the
important also as per the security production line, it becomes possible
purpose. by maintaining the speed of the motor
which is pre-programmed in the
WORKING METHODOLOGY controller during installation. It is also
The motor drivers are used to provide controlled by manually as per the
proper power supply to the motor which is requirement. It is helpful in
controlled by the PID controller on the controlling and monitoring the
basis of the output of the load cell shows complete conveyor system easily.
that the process should flow in proper  It is able to find the fault in the system
manner without any disturbance. There is a during an unwanted incident in the
dth11 (temperature sensor) used to system, also able to predict the
measure the heat emitted from the running production with the help of comparing
motor that shows that we can use the the recent data with the previous data
motor in an efficient manner. The IR taken by the system during the
sensor is used to measure the speed of the process.
motor for the monitoring purpose. The
colour detection process is used to POSSIBLE APPLICATION
differentiate unwanted thighs over the The proposed system is capable for the
conveyor belt where the camera is used to small as well as the large conveyor system,
monitor the process. it is also being used in different sectors of
automation, where the belt conveyor
The PID controller is connected with the system is used.
main controlling and monitoring unit
through a cloud using Wi-Fi module which The important application is in the food
send the real time data obtained from the manufacturing sector where the system can
different sensors on the system by the PID be able to differentiate the use of raw
controller to the cloud (Cloud storage is a material flow through the conveyor system
cloud computing model that stores data on by the help of camera and colour detection
the Internet) which can be easily access by technique. It also monitors the speed of the
the controlling and monitoring unit from system so that the production will not
where the manually inspection well be affect (maintain the process flow)
done by the employee. additional features are it helps to maintain
the proper distancing in between the final
ANALYSIS/ RESULT products on the belt conveyor so that
 Since our provided system works on packaging will become easy. It helps as
the basis of the load on the belt per the security purpose by securing data.

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 Research and Applications: Embedded System
Volume 3 Issue 2

CONCLUSIONS systems. In International Conference

The proposed system is the integrated part on Internet and Distributed
of the industrial conveyor system which is Computing Systems (pp. 340-351).
advance in controlling and monitoring as Springer, Cham.
per the following parameters:- Speed of 5. Abdelhedi, S., Taouil, K., &
the motor, Load on the belt, Total Hadjkacem, B. (2012). Design of
quantities of raw material consumed, automatic vision-based inspection
Colour detection, Size of raw material, The system for monitoring in an olive oil
real time monitoring, The temperature of bottling line. International Journal of
the belt, How much quantity should Computer Applications, 51(21).
produce (prediction), Maintaining distance 6. Li, H. (2017). Improve the
in packaging(production line), Maintaining performance of a complex fms with a
the humidity, large variety of controlling hybrid machine learning algorithm.
and monitoring parameter are help the Journal of Software Engineering and
system for the prediction of productions Applications, 10(3), 257-272.
and help also in decreasing the power 7. Gartland, J. J. (2004). U.S. Patent No.
consumption and increases the life of the 6,715,602. Washington, DC: U.S.
system, it also easy for maintenance of the Patent and Trademark Office.
system. Overall the system is helpful in 8. Kellis, J. K. (2000). U.S. Patent No.
different ways in different sectors of 6,032,787. Washington, DC: U.S.
automation of conveyor belt systems. Patent and Trademark Office.
9. Fernandez-Camacho, E., & Bordons-
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