Omron Vision V600 RF/ID Application Uses

Omron's Intelligent Flag RF/ID Systems Provide Highly-Reliable, Inexpensive Identification for Material Handling Applications

With increasing demand to track work-in-process flow in a factory environment, it has become more important to be able to discriminate between different pallets and products on a factory production line. Until now, the only way to do this was to use mechanical flags or bar codes as pallet "license plates."

Each of these solutions presents disadvantages that can affect reliability. When using mechanical flags, pallets must be positioned precisely in front of mechanical or non-contact sensors to ensure accurate reads. In addition, changing the identification information on the plate to be read can be very time-consuming and costly. Bar code readers are line-of-sight, optical devices that have great difficulty reading labels in harsh factory environments, and bar codes labels can be nearly impossible to apply in these environments. The information on a bar code is likewise unchangeable.

Omron's V600 Intelligent Flag Identification Systems overcome the limitations of mechanical flags and bar coding while providing many benefits above and beyond the ones provided by these systems. Comprised of data carriers (tags), read/write heads and amplifiers (see "How Omron's Intelligent Flag Systems Work"), Intelligent Flag Systems do not require precise positioning, do not depend on line of sight for reliable reads and require no programming. And, with data carriers as small as 8 mm in diameter, read/write heads of only 12 mm and amplifiers that measure only 98 mm (l) x 30 mm (w) x 55 mm (d), Omron's compact systems provide considerable space savings over mechanical flag identification systems consisting of metal plates and sensors. Since users can choose from a variety of amplifier, tag and sensor sizes and configurations, Intelligent Flag Systems can be configured to meet the needs of users' specific applications.

Another key advantage of Intelligent Flag Systems is the fact that the data contained on each tag is easily changeable without having to re-fixture or machine a new tag. Data can be overwritten at least 300,000 times and can be changed on the fly to meet real-time production needs. Intelligent flags are ideally suited for harsh environments because their readability is not affected by water, grease, dirt, or paint. These systems are also cost-effective; they can be installed for a price comparable to--and often lower than--those of discrete sensors and many other automatic identification/data collection systems on the market.

When designing an automatic identification system for Bosch Braking Systems Corp. (Sumter, SC), for example, Salisbury, NC-based SOTEC found that an Omron Intelligent Flag System cost less than three times that of a competitor's RF/ID system and several comparable bar coding systems while providing a greater level of flexibility.

"Price was a huge consideration in specifying the Omron Intelligent Flag System," says Tom Hapeman, project engineer at SOTEC, a designer and builder of custom machinery. Hapeman was designing an identification system to track pallets at different testing stations on the production line. He considered using a bar code system but, since the labels would not be in the exact same location on each pallet, a fixed scanner system would not work. After deciding that RF/ID was the solution for this application, Hapeman investigated several different systems and decided to use Omron's V600 HAM/HAR Intelligent Flag System. "In addition to the price consideration, the small size of the tags and amplifiers were very appealing for this application," says Hapeman. "I was also impressed by the ease with which the system could be interfaced with the existing controllers of another manufacturer."

How Omron's Intelligent Flag Systems Work

The non-contact, non-line of sight intelligent flag sensor enables the user to encode an 8-bit identification code to a wide variety of identification tags. This gives the user the ability to discriminate between 256 unique objects. The intelligent flag system is capable of reading and writing the 8-bit code using non-contact radio frequency identification techniques. When the code is read, the status of the 8 individual bits are mirrored by the sensor on eight NPN transistor output lines. This data can then be displayed on an operator interface or transferred to a PLC for further processing.