Magnetic Levitation Belt Conveyor Control System Based on Multi-Sensor Fusion

Abstract

Belt conveyors are critical in coal transportation systems; however, they are supported by rollers, which incur high energy costs. Magnetic levitation support is adopted. The measurement of a magnetic levitation air gap is important, and a displacement sensor is usually used in real-time. To address the problems of poor linearity and low measurement stability of single displacement sensors in magnetic levitation systems, a magnetic levitation support system based on multi-sensor data fusion is proposed. First, an industrial camera sensor is used to collect images, and the suspended air gap is obtained through image processing. Second, using an extended Kalman filter, the photoelectric position sensor and industrial camera sensor are fused to the suspension air gap value in the process of suspension. The electromagnet current is controlled by the PID (proportion integration differentiation) control algorithm, and experiments are carried out. Experimental results showed that, compared with an estimation of the suspension state of two sensors before and after EKF fusion, the root mean square error is reduced by 0.0597 and 0.0081, respectively, compared with the measurement value of a single sensor. Moreover, the fusion data were more robust, thereby meeting the requirements of magnetic levitation control.

Optimal Control for a Superconducting Hybrid MagLev Transport System with Multirate Multisensors in a Smart Factory

“…Recently, magnetic levitation (MagLev) systems have been extensively researched for transporting logistics in various manufacturing plants as well as traditional transportation methods such as trains [1][2][3][4]. The studied MagLev systems are being considered to replace the existing belt-type conveyor system in the semiconductor and OLED display panel production process [3][4][5][6][7]. These processes require a highly clean environment because fine dust has a significant impact on production yield [8,9].…”

Development of a Magnetic Levitation Wafer Handling Robot Transfer System with High-Accuracy and High-Cleanliness: Experimental Evaluation

“…Recently, in semiconductor manufacturing processes, the development of contactless delivery systems has been actively developed due to the importance of particle-free and highly accurate delivery operations [3][4][5][6]. Magnetic levitation technology is considered a highly promising alternative to meet these requirements [7].…”

Raw Material Flow Rate Measurement on Belt Conveyor System Using Visual Data

“…Figure 1 shows a schematic diagram of the environment. The empirical data revealed that conveyor belt system had been a focus of numerous studies in terms of researching the actual amount of material on belt [4][5][6], tracking the movements [7][8][9], checking for product quality, detecting faults, speed regulation strategy and variable belt-speed energy issue for energy saving [10], etc. These researches discuss various techniques for extracting the material from the belt through computer vision techniques, such as background subtraction, canny edge detection, and morphological operations for analysis and quantification of the material to perform further processes on it to achieve their desired goals [4].…”