PLC Operated Pick and Place Robotic Arm with a Low-Cost Interface in a SCADA System

Pick and place robots are becoming increasingly important in industries where they perform specialized tasks instead of humans. They are designed to handle various tasks precisely, reducing production costs. This work includes a robot arm that can move in three directions. This allows it to work in small spaces and pick up items from various angles. The gripper on the arm handles various shapes, such as rectangles, circles, and triangles. A Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) ensures smooth, accurate pick and place robotic arm operation. This study aims to develop a cost-effective interface between PLC and Robotic Arm in an integrated Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system. The objective is to implement an automatic Robotic Arm pick and place operation involving objects of various shapes, circles, rectangles or triangles. To drive the servo motors of the Robotic Arm, a high-cost Data acquisition (DAQ) board with a PWM interface is required. Instead of buying the vendor-specific DAQ card, Arduino is used as it already has PWM pins. Thus providing a low-cost interface between the Robotic Arm and PLC. The novelty of this work is developing a low-cost interface consisting of a PLC-Arduino integration that provides PWM (Pulse Width Modulated) signals to the stepper motors of the Robotic Arm. This enables a smooth and reliable robotic arm control operation integrated into the PLC-SCADA System. The PLC-operated Robotic Arm operation is monitored and controlled through the SCADA system, providing simple and effective interaction between the user and the system.