Color Based Object Separation in Conveyor Belt Using PLC

In today's production systems, industrial automation systems are preferred in order to provide high-efficiency and high-quality production, and therefore it is continuously developing. PLC is the basis of programmable industrial automation systems. In the study, in the PLC controlled conveyor belt system, the process of separating the objects according to their color by image processing was realized in real-time. In the image processing application, recognition is recognized by separating objects according to their colors. The process of sending objects separated by classes to different containers in the system is also done in real-time. The conveyor belt system used in the study was controlled by S7-1200 PLC. Image processing was performed in Matlab. Communication between Matlab and PLC has been used with the OPC interface application, which is widely used in the industry. This study, experimental prototype of an automation system that is widely used in industrial applications, has been successfully made. Matlab program was used in the image processing part of the conveyor belt object separation system, PLC program was integrated into communication and control part, and it was seen in experimental studies that the system was working efficiently in real-time. It has been observed that the image processing algorithm for this study has been successfully performed to sort objects according to their colors, PLC-OPC system communication, and separation of objects according to specified positions. As a result of the studies on the experimental prototype, it is foreseen that this system can be applied to a commercial or industrial system.