IA Motion Products built a mobile system that replicates real-world road conditions for testing critical safety markings—whose success was enabled using a UniStream TA 30 PLC +HMI.

The Company

IA Motion Products in western Pennsylvania are a company of automation professionals specializing in project applications, as well as the sales and support of power transmission, motion control, automation and fluid power products to service industrial manufacturers.

The Challenge

Reproduce real world environmental conditions —IA Motion Products had an interesting request: to build a system for the dispense and test of road surface markings. Vital to road safety; markings are continuously applied to a road surface, by a truck called a "c." Specifications are mandated by the state DOT with each state having unique requirements based upon native environmental conditions. These trucks dispense huge drums of material and additional materials such as retroreflective soda lime microbeads to increase visibility, UV stabilizers, and fillers. These materials are run through a series of pressurized hoses and applied to the road surface.

The results

Solution:

The solution was to build a laboratory cart that could replicate both road surface heat and the process that a “striper” truck employs to lay the stripe and beads on that surface.

Since Jeff Ianno, the president of IA Motion and himself an Electro-Mechanical Engineer, continues to have excellent experience with Unitronics controllers and programming software, he selected a UniStream TA 30 PLC +HMI to provide both the control application and the HMI touch screen .

• Temperature Control
  UniStream PID control was used to control heating of the metal test surface from an ambient room temperature of about 70◦ to 160◦F in 10 minutes and maintain it with a hysteresis of 2 degrees. UniStream is configured to read surface temperature via a 14-bit analog input connected to an off-the-shelf RTD sensor, and to control a thermal element beneath the test surface, via a relay that sends 48VDC voltage to that element.
  This enables the cart to simulate road conditions of extreme heat, in for example, Arizona—conditions that might affect the road markings.
• Motion: CANopen-Controlled
  The cart contains 3 application heads: 1 for marking material and 2 for beads.
• The dispense heads move at road speed over the heated surface, replicating the speed of a striper truck.
  UniStream is programmed to cycle material and beads using servo motor’s velocity and position via CANopen, natively embedded into UniStream and easily configured by IA Motion’s custom programming.
• HMI
  The 7” color touchscreen embedded in the UniStream controller provides the user interface. The HMI application, easily designed by IA Motion in the UniLogic; to chart temperature trends, continuously display critical parameters, cycle Start and a control interface to alter test parameters.

Summary

IA Motion's laboratory cart

Via the UniStream HMI, the completed application enables the testing lab to obtain application samples created under realistic road conditions. This allows them to take cross-sections and bead data that meet or exceed sate DOT requirements.
IA Motion president, Jeffrey Ianno, had this to say:
“Unitronics’ focus on ease of use backed by free technical support empower new programmers to confidently use Unitronics controllers to bring concept to reality making Unitronics’ a natural choice for new projects – free software, free support, and an active engineering staff at Unitronics are forever enhancing PLC firmware to meet tomorrow’s challenges and reduce project cost.”