Real-time insulation thickness measurement for Knauf Insulation
Until now, an operator checked the thickness of the insulation material in the middle of the production line by hand. We developed an autonomous system that measures the thickness contactlessly and raises an alarm immediately on any deviation.
Insulation thickness in the middle of the line was checked by hand
On the insulation processing line at Knauf Insulation in Škofja Loka, a bale of material is unrolled at the infeed and then passes through several processing stations. At the end of the line the strip must have a uniform thickness - but after processing in one of the machines in the middle of the line the thickness can deviate, and then the machine has to be adjusted immediately.
Until now this was done manually - someone stood next to the belt, measured the thickness and reacted when needed. The requirement was automated contactless thickness measurement directly on the line, with three sensors and a calculated mean value, a display of the current value, local data storage with the option of offline copying, and an alarm when the thickness limits are exceeded.
Three optical sensors and an autonomous unit with a PLC and an industrial PC
The solution uses three analog optical sensors mounted on the line above the insulation. The data is captured and processed on the PLC, stored on a local mini PC and shown on a screen, with audible and visual signalling as soon as the thickness falls outside the tolerance.
The system is built as an autonomous unit - a control cabinet with a PLC and an industrial PC. The frontend is built in React and the backend in .NET Core with a local database.
Contactless measurement that replaced manual checks on the line
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