Control and Supervision for a Bottling Process Prototype under the IEC 61131-3 Standard

In this article, the implementation of a control and supervision system for the recycling module in a prototype model, which represents an industrial bottling process, is presented. This module includes a robotic arm, conveyor belts, a rail with a transport cart, sensors, DC motors, and pistons. The recycling process uses the robot to move boxes with bottles to a conveyor belt, which takes them to the emptying zone and then to the recycling zone, where the robot separates the bottles from the packaging to reintegrate each element into its respective stage of the process. As part of the development, a motion control system was designed for the conveyor belt motors to reduce mechanical wear, optimize the energy consumption of the motors as well as reduce abrupt movements that could affect product quality. A monitoring system for the electrical variables of the system was also implemented, providing useful information for decision-making that contributes to increasing the process efficiency. For this, the IEC 61131 standard, the GRAFCET methodology, and new IoT technologies, such as View of Things, were used. After the implementation, the module was successfully automated and optimized, with monitoring and management from mobile devices, validating the effectiveness of the control system for current large-scale industrial environment.