International Journal of Control and Automation
Vol. 9, No. 6 (2016), pp.379-388
http//dx.doi.org/10.14257/ijca.2016.9.6.36
ISSN: 2005-4297 IJCA
Copyright © 2016 SERSC
Design and Implementation of Intelligent Energy Efficient
Conveyor System Model Based on Variable Speed Drive Control
and Physical Modeling
Irfan Ahmed Halepoto
1
, Muhammad Zakir Shaikh
1
, Bhawani Shankar Chowdhry
1
and Muhammad Aslam Uqaili
2
1
Department of Electronic Engineering, Mehran University of Engineering &
Technology, Jamshoro, Pakistan
2
Department of Electrical Engineering, Mehran University of Engineering &
Technology, Jamshoro, Pakistan
Corresponding e-mail: irfan.halepoto@gmail.com
Abstract
The technological advancements in process monitoring, control and industrial
automation have played a decisive role in increasing the industrial productivity and
manufacturing at faster pace even than been dreamed. An ultimatum requirement is an
accurate and precise data acquisition mechanism which can be executed through diverse
sensors especially for collecting, analyzing and sorting the objects and elements. In this
work, an energy efficient conveyor system model is proposed and implemented which not
only recognizes and sorts the objects by sensing its colour and place these objects to its
destination by using Robotic vehicle but also smartly adjusts the speed of conveyor belts
by recognizing the weight of object(s). The variable speed drive (VSD) based an optimal
belt speed control mechanism is proposed by smartly sensing the object weight and
optimally adjusting the belt speed. The proposed system optimally switches the conveyor
system to on/idle/off status to minimize the energy consumption of conveyor belts.
In this work, a mathematical model of the energy efficient conveyor system is also
derived by considering the different dynamic parameters. When conveyor belt is fully
loaded with objects, the belt moves around with its maximum potential speed, but when
conveyor belt is partially or marginally loaded or unloaded, the speed of belt is adjusted
accordingly. In this way, a significant amount of energy and cost of energy can be saved.
It is anticipated that, the developed intelligent energy efficient conveyor system model will
not only modernize the industrial manufacturing and distribution process but will
significantly reduce the energy consumption and cost and will lead to increase the life
time cycle of conveyor belts.
Keywords: Conveyor System, Object Identification, Robotic Vehicles
1. Introduction
In any industrial processing plant, the ultimatum objective is to produce standard and
high quality products and sell them at prices which make profits. These objectives can be
achieved by efficiently designed and optimally controlled processing plants. A process is
set of equipment and materials specifically related to some manufacturing operations or
system mechanism. The process control is the system of gathering the system
information, quantifying the state of the process, standardizing the rules and guidelines to
actuate the control elements accordingly [1]. For any process control system, such actions
can be executed manually where only humans are involved or in a semi-automatic way
where both machines and humans both are mutually involved or even without any