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Olis’ PLC system alerts customers to what went fallacious when a robotic stops working. | Supply: Olis Robotics
Finish customers flip to automation as a result of it guarantees constant work with minimal downtime. When one thing goes fallacious, the robotic should cease working and look ahead to a human operator to step in and determine the issue. Throughout this era, firms are shedding out on helpful time and productiveness. Olis Robotics mentioned it hopes to deal with this challenge with its distant diagnostics system for industrial automation cells.
The Seattle-based firm supplies video and telemetry-based diagnostics for workcells. This permits technicians to diagnose the foundation reason for downtime occasions, like a robotic failure.
By giving customers speedy entry to diagnostic knowledge, Olis mentioned they’ll rapidly and remotely debug robotic cells. This has the potential to slash producer downtime whereas empowering integrators to tackle extra enterprise.
Olis added that it has expanded its capabilities to whole industrial cells, from the programmable logic controller (PLC) to the fingertips of the robotic gripper, in addition to conveyors and different {hardware}. Utilizing the software program, customers can monitor and set alerts for pre-defined runtime parameters by way of the PLC, together with I/Os, registers, and customized tags.
Olis supplies key efficiency indicators
Frequent makes use of for PLC tags embody measuring total gear effectiveness (OEE), monitoring cycle occasions, and fault detection.
“The PLC usually accommodates essential diagnostic knowledge required to know the causes of unplanned downtime,” said Fredrik Ryden, CEO of Olis Robotics. “Olis’ new PLC capabilities allow real-time entry to that knowledge, successfully closing the loop on video-based diagnostics for industrial automation programs.”
Olis will launch the brand new product at IMTS 2024 in Chicago from Sept. 9 to 14. Based in 2013 as a spinout from the College of Washington’s Utilized Physics Lab, Olis mentioned it has constructed on over a decade of telerobotics analysis and growth carried out with the U.S. Navy and NASA.
When robots fail, the firm claimed that its flagship Olis system delivers the info wanted for distant monitoring, management, and troubleshooting.
New PLC makes integrators ‘unstoppable’
The PLC orchestrates the entire robots and manages the entire logic for an entire cell. For integrators, the brand new PLC capabilities improve their capability to debug a system earlier than transport.
They will additionally use it to efficiently monitor the system after deployment and remotely monitor and debug whole industrial cells.
“Diagnosing the reason for failure in fashionable automation cells is notoriously troublesome and requires appreciable experience,” mentioned Steve Solack, controls engineering supervisor at Michigan-based integrator Mission Design & Automation. “That is because of the complexity and number of elements concerned.”
“With probably the most essential diagnostic data usually being present in PLC tags and robotic knowledge, with the ability to rapidly entry such knowledge through Olis’ easy-to-use interface reduces the time and talent set required to know the issue, making us extra environment friendly and decreasing downtime prices for our prospects,” he mentioned.
Along with decreasing downtime, Olis mentioned its instruments can improve visibility for integrators and operators.
“Generally, when a failure happens, the robots could not even know that there’s an issue,” mentioned Invoice Ordakowski, gross sales engineer at Olis Robotics.
“Integrators have advised me that they are going to be ‘unstoppable’ with this new expertise,” he added. “It’s not simply the radically lowered downtime that they recognize, however the additional breadth and management PLC entry brings to distant monitoring and diagnostics.”
Olis mentioned this new performance may even be used to take care of and enhance requirements in manufacturing throughput. For instance, in an utility involving a robotic inserting bolts into a component, customers might create an alert that signifies when the feeder is working low on bolts. The PLC can then ship Olis an alert informing the operator that it’s time to refill the feeder.
Controllers construct confidence in robotics
“Kaitech expects to deploy numerous robotic cells to quite a lot of prospects, together with a significant warehouse membership retailer, within the coming years,” mentioned Kilen Multop, IT director at Idaho-based integrator Kaitech Automation.
“To assist this speedy progress, we have to be sure that robots are deployed rapidly and with out issues,” he added. “We may also want to trace cell efficiency for a few years to return. Olis allows Kaitech to scale with added confidence by serving to with these key parts of automation deployment and administration.”
Olis’ new PLC options are particular to Rockwell Automation’s Allen Bradley PLCs. Robotic arms appropriate with Olis embody these of Common Robots, Kawasaki, and FANUC. The corporate plans so as to add compatibility with extra manufacturers.
The corporate partnered with Kawasaki in February to collectively supply robots and controls to allow prospects to restart manufacturing sooner, cut back troubleshooting and downtime prices by as much as 90%, and acquire entry to professional assist extra rapidly.
