Process Control using Micro-controllers for Sequential Controlled Motions: Polvoron Molder
A Research Study Presented to The Faculty of Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department Tarlac State University Tarlac City
In Partial Fulfilment Of the Requirement for the Course EResearch-2
By Hanna Stephanie T. Lagrimas Mark Clinton L. Arellano Elton Jay G. Bildan Albert N. Gattoc Renante T. Somera Hilario G. Soriano II
CHAPTER 1 THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND Introduction
Polvoron is a semi-sweet concoction made of toasted flour, powdered milk, sugar, and butter. This is considered as a dessert or snack in the Philippines wherein roasted rice puffs referred to locally as “pinipig” is added.
Making polvoron is very easy to do, even the kids could help in making one. But molding it on the desire shape is quite hard for polvoron makers. It requires the person patience and it may take a long time. One possible solution to this kind of problem is the process control in molding the polvoron. It is less time consuming than the manual moulding procedure of the polvoron. The economic and space advantages of the present invention over such an arrangement are obvious. Because of the unstoppable technology, discoveries and developments continually bring things to new solutions. Today’s technology is quite advanced and continues to advance increasingly more rapidly throughout the world and during the same period the general well-being and quality of life of most people in the world have improved dramatically; an expanded and developed ideas from theory to reality. Researchers, developers, investors and even discoveries contributed a lot in continually improving the quality and trend of technology we acquire. Air and land transportation, technological gadgets, man-made structures and even cures for the craving tummy are some of the products of technology and it has a notable impact in a wide range of highly visible industries.
As men learned to live in step with technology, they have searched the remedies for maintaining the output of a specific process within a desire range through what we called process control. Process Control is extensively used in industry and enables mass production of continuous processes such as oil refining, paper manufacturing, chemicals, power plants, and many other industries. Process Control enables automation, with which a small staff of operating personnel can operate a complex process from a central control room. With this, the researchers came up with the idea of conducting a device that can be used to mold polvoron and maintain the right amount on the output in a faster way. The researchers envision it as microcontroller-based system which has the p ower to direct the mechanical works done by the said device. Statement of the Objectives
This study aims to attain the following objectives. 1. To design, develop and construct a controlled processing polvoron molder. 2. To be able to apply micro-controller on the as the controlling device of the machine. 3. To increase production molding efficiency by introducing a process control system.
Significance of the Study
The process controlled polvoron moulder will greatly benefit those Filipinos who own a small business of making polvoron. It decreases human error since it will be operated by process control system. It is also beneficial especially to those people who
lack of time to their family or any subject matter due to molding time reduction. Since the machine will be control by process control system, amount of polvoron will be distributed equally and that leads to reducing the number of consumer's complaints. Moreover, this research links both electronic and mechanical technology since it is a collaboration of logic controllers and mechanical devices.
Scope and Delimitation of the Study
This study will be centred only in molding the polvoron on its equal and desire amounts. To do this, the application of electronic technology will be applied to a mechanical system. Mixing the ingredients in making the polvoron and packaging are out of scope of this study. Microcontroller unit (MCU) will be used as the programming device for the said machine. Process Control is employed as a system for the equal distribution of the output.
Definition of Terms: Machine. An apparatus, tool or a device used for particular purpose. Microcontroller Unit (MCU) is an integrated circuit (IC) that contains many of the
functions found in a typical computer system. A microcontroller uses a microprocessor as its central processing unit and incorporates features such as memory, a timing reference, and input/output peripherals, all on the same chip.
Process Control is a mixture between the statistics and engineering discipline that deals
with the mechanism, architectures, and algorithms for controlling a process.
CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES
This chapter presents a brief overview of assembled related literature and studies collected by the researchers. It presents concepts and principles which are examined to guide the researchers in the increase of ideas and used to scrutinize relevant details regarding the study. Gathered information was congregated through magazines, books, and internet that are related with the study which will serve as the foundation for acquiring more knowledge and understanding about the nature of the study for further point of reference.
RELATED LITERATURE
Technological advancements in process monitoring, control and industrial automation over the past decades have contributed greatly to improve the productivity of virtually
all
manufacturing
industries
throughout
the
world.
According
to
www.pacontrol.com, while 90% of global production is still controlled by analog instrumentation, almost all the controls installed as a part of a new plant or plant expansion are Digital Control Systems DCS connected by digital networks. Nowadays, in this era of digital buses, one can plug in a laptop or use a wireless hand tool to instantly establish access to all the data, displays and intelligence that resides anywhere on the DCS network. This capability, in combination with the self-tuning, selfdiagnosing and optimizing features of modern process control, makes both start-up activity and operational routines much easier and more efficient.
Automation or automatic control is the use of various control systems for operating equipment such as machinery, processes in factories, boilers and heat treating ovens, switching in telephone networks, steering and stabilization of ships, aircraft and other applications with minimal or reduced human intervention. Some processes have been completely automated. The biggest benefit of automation is that it saves labor; however, it is also used to save energy and materials and to improve quality, accuracy and precision. The
term automation,
inspired
by
the
earlier
word automatic (coming
from automaton), was not widely used before 1947, when General Motors established the automation
department.
It
was
during
this
time
that
industry
was
rapidly
adopting feedback controllers, which were introduced in the 1930s. Automation has been achieved by various means including mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic, electrical, electronic and computers, usually in combination. Complicated systems, such as modern factories, airplanes and ships typically use all these combined techniques. Two common types of automation are feedback control and sequence control, Feedback control which is usually continuous and involves taking measurements using a sensor and making calculated adjustments to keep the measured variable within a set range, and sequence control, in which a programmed sequence of discrete operations is performed, often based on system logic. Cruise control is an example of the former while an elevator or an automated teller machine (ATM) is an example of the latter.
The theoretical basis of feedback control is control theory, which also covers servomechanisms, which are often part of an automated system. Feedback control is called "closed loop" while non-feedback control is called "open loop." One of the significant applications of automation is the automatic telephone switchboard which was introduced in 1892 along with dial telephones. By 1929, 31.9% of the Bell system was automatic. Automatic telephone switching originally used electromechanical switches, which consumed a large amount of electricity. Call volume eventually grew so fast that it was feared the telephone system would consume all electricity production, prompting Bell Labs to begin research on the transistor. (Jerome, 1934) The logic performed by telephone switching relays was the inspiration for the digital computer.
The first commercially successful glass bottle blowing machine was an automatic model introduced in 1905.The machine, operated by a two man crew working 12 hour shifts, and could produce 17,280 bottles in 24 hours, compared to 2,880 bottles made by a crew of six men and boys working in a shop for a day. The cost of making bottles by machine was 10 to 12 cents per gross compared to $1.80 per gross by the manual glassblowers and helpers. Sectional electric drives were developed using control theory. Sectional electric drives are used on different sections of a machine where a precise differential must be maintained between the sections. In steel rolling, the metal elongates as it passes through pairs of rollers, which must run at successively faster speeds. In paper making the paper
sheet shrinks as it passes around steam heated drying arranged in groups, which must run at successively slower speeds. The first application of a sectional electric drive was on a paper machine in 1919. One of the most important developments in the steel industry during the 20th century was continuous wide strip rolling, developed by Armco in 1928. Before automation many chemicals were made in batches. In 1930, with the widespread use of instruments and the emerging use of controllers, the founder of Dow Chemical Co. was advocating continuous production. Self-acting machine tools that displaced hand dexterity so they could be operated by
boys
and
unskilled
labourers
were
developed
by James
Nasmyth in
the
1840s. Machine tools were automated with Numerical control (NC) using punched paper tape in the 1950s. This soon evolved into computerized numerical control (CNC). Today extensive automation is practiced in practically type of manufacturing and assembly process. Some of the larger processes include electrical power generation, oil refining, chemicals, steel mills, plastics, cement plants, fertilizer plants, pulp and paper mills, automobile and truck assembly, aircraft production, glass manufacturing, natural gas separation plants, food and beverage processing, canning and bottling and manufacture of various kinds of parts. Robots are especially useful in hazardous applications like automobile spray painting. Robots are also used to assemble electronic circuit boards. Automotive welding is done with robots and automatic welders are used in applications like pipelines. The present study being undertaken about automation are closely related to these previous researches since they both show the use of automation controls and its importance especially in the industry of food processing where the study will be focused.
RELATED STUDIES
According to Jim Pinto, because of the relatively small production volumes and huge varieties of applications, industrial automation typically utilizes new technologies developed in other markets. Automation companies tend to customize products for specific applications and requirements. So the innovation comes from targeted applications, rather than any hot, new technology. Automation plays an increasingly important role in the global economy and in daily experience. Engineers strive to combine automated devices with mathematical and organizational tools to create complex systems for a rapidly expanding range of applications and human activities. According to www.eautomationsystem.com, automated control systems are capable of gauging machinery productivity and efficiency. This feature results in the importance of them for industrial usage. These can work as greatly effective automation testing tools which help big time for the proper management of the industry. The management can ensure machine security and trigger productivity with the great benefits of those tools due to the intervention.
Recent and emerging applications of automation are globally developed in many industries. The food retail industry has started to apply automation to the ordering process; McDonald's has introduced touch screen ordering and payment systems in many of its restaurants, reducing the need for as many cashier employees. University of Texas has introduced fully automated cafe retail locations. Some Cafes and restaurants have utilized mobile and tablet "apps" to make the ordering process more efficient by
customers ordering and paying on their device. Some restaurants have automated food delivery to customers’ tables using a Conveyor belt system. The use of robots is
sometimes employed to replace waiting staff. In today's competitive global market, for the survival of any industry, manufacturing companies need to be flexible, adaptive, responsive to changes, proactive and be able to produce a variety of products in a short time at a lower cost. The food industry is facing increasing global competition and consumer demands. These require new technologies and practices for competitive advantages in the market. Industrial automation can and will generate explosive growth with technology related to new inflection points: nanotechnology and nanoscale assembly systems; MEMS and nanotech sensors (tiny, low-power, low-cost sensors) which can measure everything and anything; and the pervasive Internet, machine to machine (M2M) networking. Real-time systems will give way to complex adaptive systems and multi processing. The future belongs to nanotech, wireless everything, and complex adaptive systems. Major new software applications will be in wireless sensors and distributed peerto-peer networks – tiny operating systems in wireless sensor nodes, and the software that allows nodes to communicate with each other as a larger complex adaptive system. That is the wave of the future.
CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Research Design
To achieve the objectives of this study the first thing to do is to find out what are the things or materials that the machine needs for their particular purposes. Materials to be used should purposely select in order to build it with maximum potential and to prolong its usability and functions. The quality of the materials that will be used is a huge factor in the performance of the machine. Poor quality materials can make instrument work, but not in its full capacity. Aside from the materials, it is virtual to choose such stuffs that are excellent in quality but still have an affordable costs. The over-all cost for the research is one of the leading factors that the researchers must consider. It is impractical to make such a research that is too costly. The next stage will be the programming of the essential parts of the machine particularly the microcontroller unit, since this will serve as the brain of the machine we are going to construct. To be able for this hardware to operate accurately, software components will be used.The
researchers
will going to ask for
the
assistance
of
a
professional
programmer in dealing with the software part of the project. The software part will be the program running in the monitor.
Research Paradigm
The figure below shows the paradigm of the research. I nput
Setting the machine.
Process
Automation
Output
Moulded Polvoron
Process Control
Instrumentation
Our information was taken from two primary sources, library and the internet. Reading previous related researches in the library is a great way in gathering data and information. On the other hand, gathering additional data from the internet is an effective one.
