Objective. Monitor critical processes in real time
Our client, a large manufacturer of grain-based ingredients, wants to monitor several of its critical plant processes. The first of them is the measurement of the moisture of their extruded product where there can be no contact with the product. Other measurements they want to automate are viewing the product output from the extruder, viewing the dryer bed to know the dispersion of the material, viewing the interior of the dryer in real time and also viewing and exporting data from an old screen to which they have no access. The objective is to be able to know these processes in real time from any location in the group.
Solución. Moisture measurement with special sensor and artificial vision cameras with Ethernet
The first step consisted of collecting the requirements, spaces and distances for the 5 monitoring points that we were going to implement. Afterwards, we begin with the definition and selection of the equipment for each case. For the 4 visualization cases, 4 Ethernet artificial vision cameras and ATEX housing were selected.
For the special case of non-contact moisture monitoring, a special sensor was selected that could operate at the distance needed on that extruded product conveyor belt. Also selected were 4 light beacons and an audible alarm that is activated when the value at any of the 4 established control points falls outside the margins established by our client. We installed the equipment at the client and carried out the calibration and communication of all of them.
At this point we were able to begin taking images to train the 4 artificial vision systems and also taking data for the special non-contact moisture sensor.
We developed an application for managing the information obtained that included a graphical interface for remote viewing and local recording of the data.
The final step consisted of the validation of the 5 control points and the training we gave of the system and the developed algorithm.