Development and Testing of PLC based Safety and Torque Control System for Servo Applications

Abstract

As the interest on safety for application based robots have grown, safety system plays vital role in robotic control system. Systems for the robotic safety functions are configured by conventional robot systems which consist of a manipulator, robot controller and sensors. PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) based control is the latest advancement into robotic system. Integrating and interfacing safety sensors with PLC without connecting I/O module is challenging task. This paper introduces latest technique for safety to interface ultrasonic sensor with Kollmorgen PLC, a servo driver for robotic system. This system integrates Kollmorgen PLC with Microsoft Visual Studio C++. Safety sensor is interfaced with Arduino and Visual studio which transfers data to Kollmorgen PLC for taking decision based on safety. Final aim of this work is to stop all the motion axis of robot based on safety sensor data without connecting sensor to controller. Apart from control part, safety of robot is equally important. Interfacing of banner safety guard with kollmorgen servo drive for safety purpose has been implemented.