Towards Industry 4.0, the use of LabVIEW and CompactRIO
The challenge
Create a connected and modular system allowing the addition of functionalities (addition of new types of tests, coupling of bays, etc.) in their supervision bay for present and future CETIM tests.
Our solution
Use LabVIEW to develop a program using Networks Streams communication to interface with a CompactRIO controller to meet the need for coupling acquisition systems.
The Fluids and Flow Technical Center (TFE) of the Technical Center for Mechanical Industries (CETIM) located in the Nantes region, plays an essential role in the qualification of hydraulic systems. In an increasingly open European and international context, Cetim is moving towards technological and organizational research programs. These programs cannot be set up without adequate tools and an upgrade of their means of testing. Cetim has selected Phalanx, in order to provide expertise in the field of acquisition, control and testing to produce a tailor-made control and command rack integrating acquisition and generation hardware, as well as software for the supervision of their different types of test.
A solution serving the industry of the future
In a publication by Thibault Bidet-Mayer published on September 12th, 2016 in La Fabrique de l'Industrie called “The industry of the future: a global competition”, it is written “Digital […] is leading manufacturers to rethink their models of businesses in order to put the customer at the center of their strategy, by involving them in the design stages, by perfecting their offer thanks to big data or by extending product offerings to solutions or services ”
This approach was adopted by the TFE service of Cetim in Nantes in order to renovate their acquisition bay fleet, essential working tools for the generation of test reports for their customers and thus offer them the best tool to test their system. hydraulic. This approach does not stop there.
La mise en place d’une solution National Instruments pour la partie matérielle d’acquisition et l’utilisation de l’environnement de développement LabVIEW, nous a permis de sortir une application à la hauteur des exigences actuelles et futures en terme d’industrie 4.0.
A simplified and modern HMI for a clean application
The software developed is based on an old version programmed under VBA. Its interface could vary from one type of test to another. Phalanx made the decision to keep an identical overall interface independent of the type of test. This standardization of the software park reduces training costs for technicians. The user has access to several panels accessible via a menu in the form of an icon. When launching the software, the user has the choice between several types of test: Pump, Tap, Valve, Turbine, Pressure reducing devices, etc...
Depending on the choice selected, the software offers specific configuration and supervision.
The number of controls and indicators has been revised downwards in order to guarantee a clean UI and avoid unnecessary information. Thanks to the use of interpolation and filtering tools present in LabVIEW and our expertise in signal processing, we were able to implement smooth curve interpolations making it easier for users to read the curve. This smoothing was successful thanks to the use of the "backward filter" and "forward filter" method to smooth the curve while canceling the phase shift generated by the filtering (see Image 2).
The material choice, a response to their future need
During the pre-study phase of their project, it was specified that the number of acquisition and generation channels could vary from one trial to another and that this number was likely to increase sharply for specific trials. We therefore opted for the installation in a bay of one compactRIO master 9037 and two expansion chassis 9149. You can see the number of connectors available on the front panel of the bay on the image.
On a bay, we acquire:
32 4 / 20mA current channels using NI 9203 modules
12 acceleration lanes using NI 9232 modules
12 voltage channels ± 10V via the use of an NI 9220 module
8 PT100 RTD channels using an NI 9216 module
15 thermocouple channels using an NI 9213 module
We also have the following generation channels:
28 SPST relay channels using NI 9482 modules
8 4 / 20mA current channels using NI 9265 modules
16 voltage channels ± 10V via the use of an NI 9264 module
This large number of channels is sufficient for most of their test, however, in the future, specific trials may require increasing this number, hence the need for hardware that can easily be chained together. We opted for a solution using Network Streams to detect which CompactRIOs are plugged into the local network. Each CompactRIO in each bay with a different IP address detects chained arrays. The use of Network Streams facilitates programming and allowed us to code this feature in a reasonable time.
The chosen material meets another need, connectivity to material via WIFI. The chosen CompactRIO can connect via WIFI to a network, so we can retrieve data from connected sensors.
Conclusion and perspectives
The use of National Instruments solutions, hardware and software, allowed us to meet the challenge of the industry of the future within Cetim.
Cetim, a player in the industry of the future, wishes to put their customer at the heart of their projects by offering the possibility of accessing a visualization of the tests in progress on their equipment. To do this, Phalanx uses the Web Module technology of LabVIEW NXG to design secure web user interfaces..
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