Safety for every level

The everyday life of quality managers is also accompanied by mistakes and damages. According to the Aviation Security Act, a company that ships air freight to the USA must protect all goods from unauthorized access. However, it is not always easy to inspect liquids, electrical equipment and batches as well as packaging, industrial semi-finished products and small elements along the value and supply chain.

Controls are subject to a high cost and time expenditure. An unsuitable quality control, a technical negligence, let alone a manipulation bring every goods logistics into the skid. Every cog in the supply chain could be damaged or blocked in the event of errors.

This is why those responsible for goods use protection and safety systems from companies such as Siemens, which are often also equipped with Sick's sensory technology.

Laser in logistics
One Sick project, for example, deals with "classic" protection tasks such as fence and facade monitoring of a distribution center. Because such a site is enclosed by kilometer-long fences, sensor specialists network several 2D laser scanners with each other. The so-called 2D laser scanners Laser Measure-ment Systems LMS from Sick prevent the fence from being climbed over or undermined, as well as other unwanted intrusions.

Corresponding cameras - for example high-speed dome cameras (pan and tilt zoom cameras) - are "triggered" by the laser signals. The LMS sends each relevant signal to a detection and video management system. The cameras automatically focus on the location of the incident or intrusion. In the event of an unauthorized intrusion, high-level

"Now there are no more false alarms." Mark Pikkarainen, Comtrol's General Manager

alarm images are sent to security guards. The 2D systems register any irregularities with their wide angle of vision.

As a supplementary security measure, operators of a distribution center always rely on facade and area monitoring. Laser scanners are also used here. If the sensors trigger an alarm (corresponding emergency call), this is sent directly via the intrusion alarm system to the intervention centre providing assistance (service control centre/security personnel). - However, the LMS should also be able to "work" without walls in bad weather.

Therefore, false signals and ambient lighting must not irritate the sensors. Sick specialists can, however, include fixed obstacles such as wall structures in the safety programming. You can store any environmental contu- nents (for reference) in the system.

Lasers are the ideal complement to glass breakage sensors. They detect perpetrators earlier than other sensors before they destroy windows, doors or inventory.

Finally, there is also protection against unnoticed intrusion when doors, gates and windows are open. With a corresponding linking of the monitoring scanners (access control system), "virtual doors" can even be formed, which offer the logistics process unhindered optimal protection. Together with the intrusion detection system, the scanners protect the goods as well as the required logistics processes extremely reliably, without impairing the process.

The right sensor selection
Different sensor solutions are available depending on the focus of the requirement. The optimized optical performance via sensors opens up a wide range of applications in which almost all transparent objects can be reliably inspected: for example, from transparent packaging to PET bottles.

The sensors of the Sick product families WL9G-3 in the glass fibre reinforced VISTAL® plastic housing and WL12G-3 in the stable zinc die-cast housing are very robust and resistant to a variety of cleaning agents and disinfectants. Sensors such as WLG4S Inox and WLG4S are specifically designed for hygienic use in wet areas of food and pharmaceutical production.

Sick sensors are characterized by their absolutely robust and sealed housing and their consistently implemented "washdown" or hygienic design.

Photoelectric sensors with integrated switching threshold adaptation prove their worth in a harsh, dirty environment. This CTA feature (CTA = Continuous Treshold Adaption) is made possible by the use of special ASIC technologies. In a relatively clean environment, retro-reflective photoelectric sensors such as the WL8G, WL11G-2 and WLG190T offer sufficiently high functional reserves for long, maintenance-free continuous operation. The product description states that the Sick sensors find space in the furthest corners.

Integrated security
With smart sensor solutions including IO-Link, a sensor specialist like Sick offers outstanding options for safeguarding automation technology in machines and systems. The WL9G-3, WL12G-3 and WLG4S-3 photoelectric sensors already have an integrated IO-Link option in the standard version. With this technology, the sensors transmit digital switching states, digitized analog values as well as numerous function and service data.

This allows systems to be maintained step-by-step and preventively without machine failures. Furthermore, the photoelectric switches with the IO-Link open up additional functions such as electronic "debouncing" for multiple signals as well as time measurement and product tracking via time stamp.

Essential tasks that previously had to be programmed and processed in the automation system can now be transferred to a modern automation pyramid.

International milestones
The company was founded in 1946 by Erwin Sick in Vaterstetten near Munich. Sick achieved its commercial breakthrough in 1952 by presenting the first accident prevention light curtain ready for series production at the international machine tool trade fair in Hanover. Sick AG now advises international trade, transport and distribution centres, ports and airports.

A milestone in the company's 70-year history: In 2012, the company installed a thermal portal on the Austrian side of the Karawanken Tunnel. In 2013, a fully automatic system was also put into operation at the south portal in Airolo. It measures the brake temperature of the transporters passing through. If the brakes have become too hot, the sick scanner alerts the tunnel inspectors. In order to detect and eject heated trucks, the Gotthard tunnel near Göschenen was also equipped with a VHD system with LMS5xx sensors from Sick in 2016.

Comtrol Corporation, a long-time business partner of Sick, is again using LMS laser scanners in a number of applications. For example, the LMS5xx sensor was tested both indoors and outdoors. Attempts were made to pass through the sensor's "field of view" unnoticed, but so far no security specialist has succeeded in doing so.

Mark Pikkarainen, general manager for safety products at Comtrol, USA: "Sick's LMS is an extremely powerful, accurate yet cost-effective sensor that is suitable as a standalone or complementary sensor."

Perimeter protection for nuclear power plants
Over the past five years, Comtrol has worked with integration partners to certify the LMS for use as an intrusion detection sensor to protect nuclear power plants in North America. The LMS is used as perimeter protection outside nuclear power plants.

"In extreme weather conditions around a nuclear power plant in the Northeast, the LMS was the only sensor that didn't fail or trigger a false alarm in heavy snowfall," explains Mark Pikkarainen.

This "reliability" is guaranteed by a professional installation and parametrization as well as the multi-echo technology of the laser scanner, as well as by filter functions for adverse weather conditions.

The US company also uses the LMS to create a "virtual curtain" around restaurants in airport halls. The LMS1xx is used for after-hours property protection instead of expensive and aesthetically unappealing metal gates or doors.

So far, no one has succeeded in duping the LMS. When properly pa-rametered, it has a detection accuracy of 100 percent.

Property protection for restaurants
Mark Pikkarainen, Comtrol's General Manager, reveals: "Initially there were a few problems with false alarms in the early morning hours. But when it was determined that these had been triggered by a mouse, the scanner's beam was simply adjusted to a few centimetres above the ground. Now there are no false alarms."

LMS and CCTV cameras are also used to detect violations and preserve evidence in connection with theft. Sick's sensor portfolio is scaled to meet a wide range of applications in a changing industrial environment and to provide future-proof solutions.