conveyor, the product positioning conveyor, indexes the bags forward and forms the products into groups of four, in this particular application. The third conveyor, the loading position conveyor, quickly advances the group of four to the pick station where the robotic arm loads the products into cases or bags. Although the three conveyors perform different tasks throughout this application, they are at all times synchronized with each other.

To accomplish this close coordination, designers used Ethernet Powerlink, a real-time Ethernet based communication protocol, to send positioning information to all of the drives. This architecture eliminates additional encoder wiring between the drives, reducing overall wiring complexity as well as troubleshooting time.

BENEFITS FROM NEW AUTOMATION PLATFORMS