Pepperl+Fuchs Blog

Discovery Robotics has a corporate mission “to increase human productivity, safety, and quality of life by creating robotic solutions that deliver value to [their] customers.” The Pittsburgh, PA-based robotics manufacturer created the FX250, an autonomous commercial floor cleaning robot, to accomplish this mission in the janitorial services industry.

According to the National Safety Council, ergonomic injuries and accidental falls are common health risks plaguing janitorial workers. Discovery Robotics built the FX250 to reduce these incidents. The company even co-founded the Work to Zero 2050 Movement with the goal of eliminating workplace injury and death by 2050. To help achieve this goal, Discovery Robotics needed an innovative industrial sensor manufacturer for AGV navigation. 

According to the US Department of Energy, the sun sends 430 quintillion Joules of energy to earth every hour. This abundance of energy makes the sun a viable power source. Rapid technological advancements and improvements in industrial sensor precision have helped make solar power a practical alternative to fossil fuels.

Pepperl+Fuchs offers a broad portfolio of sensors for solar power plants, such as the F199 inclination sensor for precise measurement of position and incline angles. In this blog, you’ll learn more about concentrated solar power (CSP) plants and how Pepperl+Fuchs inclination sensors help optimize the way these plants produce energy.

Moving from point A to B in a busy warehouse can be a challenge for even the most advanced AGVs. So, it is important that the right guidance system is in place to ensure material handling tasks can be performed accurately and reliably.

With the compact position guided vision (PGV) positioning system from Pepperl+Fuchs, even the smallest AGVs can navigate without error. The PGV works in conjunction with the following four guidance options, all of which are available for our newest PGV EtherNet/IP version for more interoperability: Data Matrix code tape, colored lanes, control codes, and Data Matrix tags.

Large-scale industries like manufacturing and mining produce millions of gallons of wastewater every day. This wastewater can be reused or returned to the environment after going through a wastewater treatment plant. The average time it takes to successfully treat water once it enters the plant is heavily influenced by the technology available. While treatment can take less than a day in some plants, it can take up to 36 hours in others. But if a plant is equipped with the latest process automation technology, wastewater treatment takes less time.

The IO-Link communication protocol has become a recognized standard in almost every branch of industry. The microcontrollers used make the sensors even more intelligent and can store parameter settings and provide additional information about device status and signal quality. This makes it easy to replace defective sensors since stored settings can be automatically transferred to new sensors during operation. IO-Link can be integrated into any network independently of the fieldbus via point-to-point connection and 3-wire standard cabling. An IO-Link master can also be used to operate both IO-Link and conventional switching signals with identical wiring. In addition, IO-Link sensors can be connected to conventional digital inputs. Read more about these and other advantages in this blog.

Ultrasonic double sheet sensors help ensure continuous, error-free processes in a range of industrial applications. They are used to prevent more than one layer of material from being fed into a machine. The same technology behind double sheet detection can also be applied to label detection applications.

Rotary encoders are industrial sensors that monitor acceleration, speed, and direction. They compile data on shaft rotation and convert it to an analog or digital output signal. A number of industrial communication protocols are available, including PROFIBUS, EtherNet/IP, and PROFINET. Rotary encoders are used in a wide range of industries, such as machine and plant engineering, material handling, and print/paper.

Designing control cabinets that save as much space as possible can be a challenge for plant operators working in fieldbus-based automation. Fieldbus installations help optimize space in electrical cabinets, since intermediate wiring is not required, and each field cable supplied from the cabinet connects up to 20 field devices to the control technology. The number of segments that can be installed per control point cabinet plays a key role in planning, because more segments per cabinet means fewer cabinets in the supply room and significant cost savings during construction. These factors contribute to savings for investors, planners, and plant operators. In order to achieve this goal, three factors have to be taken into account:

Many of today’s process automation applications depend on fieldbus technology because of its efficiency in digital bilateral communication. Fieldbus devices can communicate standard process values to the plant operator and the DCS; however, they also have the ability to provide additional information such as operating hours, process temperature, and status bytes for condition monitoring. This wide range of measurements allows plant operators to perform preventative maintenance, recognize field device faults, and predict outages to reduce downtime and increase availability.

Efficient intralogistics requires automated guided vehicles (AGVs) to move with speed and precision through warehouses or factory floors, avoiding obstacles and navigation errors. Navigation technology is essential to ensuring an AGV and the product it is carrying make it to their destination in one piece. One of the most popular types of AGV guidance technology is tape. The two types of AGV navigation tape are nonmagnetic tape, which can be comprised of Data Matrix codes or just solid color, and magnetic tape.