Android Apps for Conveyor Belt Control

Abstract

It is easy for people to find a lot of different kinds of conveyor belt systems in various environments. You can observe that these sorts of systems have been installed in places like the airports, mass transit stations, commercial buildings, factories and even play grounds. Remote monitoring systems for conveyor belt system can provide a safe conveyor drive systems having a faster response and reliable control. In this project, a phone based device will be used as the handset for controlling the conveyor belt system. An Android Apps will be developed with a friendly GUI in order to control this conveyor-belt system and hence we can change the speeds, directions and provide different kinds of motion patterns to the conveyor-belt. The later function will be used more for the industrial applications. In this project, we are using the stepper motor, since control circuit of the stepper motor is more simple and no feedback circuitries are needed. Such that the system will be more simple, it definitely will reduce the cost of the system as well. Of course you can use other motors such as servo motors or the hub motors for the system depending on what kind of situation or power you want. In this system, the stepper motor can be simply controlled by three control signals which are the "Enable", "Pulse" and "Direction" signals. Since the system is controlled remotely, the wireless Wi-Fi in conjunction with the Raspberry Pi Linux based microcontroller module are being in used together with the driver module of the stepper motor. The Raspberry Pi in principle is logged in by the smart phone through WiFi connection. Once the smart phone has connected to the microcontroller module, the smart phone can send all control data or parameters to the controller module. Apart from controlling conveyor belt movement, Android Apps is linked with the phpMyAdmin database and the apps can perform user-registration, login and logout. After creating the user records, the sending commands for individual user will be recorded in database and the data can be retrieved and viewed later on by the administrator or the authorized users and the previously sending commands can be checked if necessary. This feature can help the operators to control the system instantly and remotely with mobile device which makes the system more efficient, reliable and safe. Robotic Engineering is getting more prevalent these years. Through controlling multiple motors, we can simply control robot movement with an Android Apps as well. In this project, 3D printing technology is being used. Since the 3D printer is used to print some holding parts and the tester for the stepper motor. The prototype for the project will look more nice and presentable.