Radar technology for automation

In future, Pilz radar sen­sors will even be able to detect people or objects in defined zones. This tech­nology will expand the cur­rent range of appli­ca­tions: Pilz’s safe radar sen­sors cur­rently pro­vide non-con­tact pro­tec­tion. As pro­tec­tive devices, they are the pre­ferred choice for area guarding. Par­tic­u­larly when people require fre­quent access to the danger zone. That’s because this sensor type, unlike other sen­sors, can mon­itor vol­umes.

For use even in the most rugged environments

Radar sys­tems operate with elec­tro­mag­netic waves in the two-digit giga­hertz range and there­fore react to move­ments – in other words it’s a very spe­cial type of sensor. The gen­eral rule of thumb for using a safe radar system in automa­tion is this: radar tech­nology is the right choice wher­ever opto­elec­tronic sen­sors reach their envi­ron­mental limits. Com­pared with opto­elec­tronic sensor tech­nolo­gies, a radar sensor is not only well able to tol­erate rugged envi­ron­ments con­t­a­m­i­nated with dirt and dust, but is also an ideal pro­tec­tive mea­sure in envi­ron­ments with extreme tem­per­a­ture fluc­tu­a­tions and weather con­di­tions. Envi­ron­mental con­di­tions such as rain or bad light, as well as flying sparks or vibra­tion, present no problem to radar sys­tems. Radar tech­nology also scores highly when it is nec­es­sary to go beyond area mon­i­toring and objects are to be detected in a three-dimen­sional space.

“Far-sighted” safeguarding with radar – even outdoors

The radar sys­tem’s actual pro­tec­tion zone is deter­mined by the posi­tioning, instal­la­tion height and incli­na­tion of the sen­sors. The safe radar system PSEN­radar from Pilz can mon­itor an area or zone of dif­ferent sizes, depending on the type of radar selected. In addi­tion to the radar sensor with a detec­tion range of 0 to 5 metres, Pilz has another safe radar sensor that even covers a range of up to 9 metres. Fur­ther­more, product types offer an extended field of vision, which is par­tic­u­larly advan­ta­geous for mobile appli­ca­tions in out­door areas. This is par­tic­u­larly the case on very large machines such as gantry cranes, for example – in this case, PSEN­radar “sees far beyond the machine”, per­forming better than con­ven­tional radar tech­nology. If a gantry crane is to trans­port mate­rial ide­ally without stop­ping, the PSEN­radar can be mounted directly on the gantry crane. The Pilz sensor can “look far ahead beyond the crane” – to see if anyone is in the travel path, for example. The sig­nif­i­cantly extended detec­tion zone enables there to be a suf­fi­cient pro­tec­tion zone around the machine, even on such “mas­sive” machinery.

Radar creates space

As with all types of pro­tec­tion, area guarding of plant and machinery via radar sys­tems should always be user-friendly. In prac­tice, this means that devices for safe zone mon­i­toring must be “out of the way” and must be capable of being used in any indus­trial envi­ron­ment. Because the robust Pilz radar tech­nology mea­sures three-dimen­sional spaces, users can also mount the sen­sors on the wall or on safety fences, for example, where they don’t cause any obstruc­tion. This flex­ible, inte­grable radar tech­nology is ulti­mately a guar­antee that the safety of a mon­i­tored zone is reli­ably ensured — as is its pro­duc­tivity.

Cover automation tasks completely

Key­word: Com­plete pack­ages – including for radar tech­nology. That’s why Pilz focuses on a com­pre­hen­sive overall con­cept when it comes to radar sensor tech­nology: depending on the appli­ca­tion, the safe radar sensor solu­tion includes up to six radar sen­sors, one con­trol unit and the con­fig­urable, safe small con­troller PNOZ­multi 2. Together with the safe small con­troller PNOZ­multi 2 as FSoE Main­In­stance, you can easily imple­ment safety-related net­working with the safe radar system in the EtherCAT com­mu­ni­ca­tion system as a one-cable solu­tion – with min­imum wiring effort. With this com­plete Pilz package, users can detect unau­tho­rised access and pre­vent an unex­pected restart or acci­dents.

Prod­ucts are “only” one side of it: at Pilz, the safe radar solu­tion also includes the appro­priate ser­vices, for example the nec­es­sary con­for­mity assess­ment for the machine. This is the only way to create a com­pre­hen­sive, com­plete solu­tion for pro­tec­tion zone mon­i­toring.

Easier configuration = faster commissioning

As has long been pos­sible on the con­trol side, radar tech­nology offers users the option to select sen­sors pre­cisely using a con­fig­u­rator, so that the appli­ca­tion can be put into oper­a­tion more quickly. With the PSEN­radar Con­fig­u­rator from Pilz, the right pro­tec­tion zone can be defined for each sensor, depending on the size of the area to be mon­i­tored. This is deter­mined by the arrange­ment, instal­la­tion height and incli­na­tion of the sensor. In addi­tion to the pro­tec­tion zone, it is also pos­sible to con­figure a warning zone: if a person vio­lates the warning zone, this is sig­nalled visu­ally, by an optical signal, for example. This allows Pilz to mon­itor the oper­a­tor’s response, which can happen quickly to boost pro­duc­tivity.

Pilz looks further

Radar tech­nology is cur­rently a promising new trend not just for zone mon­i­toring but also for sur­veying at a dis­tance. That’s because it offers the pos­si­bility to detect even very weak impulses – such as breathing move­ments for example. Radar’s very high detec­tion capa­bility enables you to mea­sure these very sen­si­tive move­ments. Pilz is par­tic­u­larly focused on the detec­tion of people within a defined space. Why? – If users know for sure where people or machine oper­a­tors can safely be present in pro­duc­tion areas, they can guar­antee both Safety and Secu­rity for people, and increase plant pro­duc­tivity. So one of Pilz’s orig­inal themes.

To sum up: Radar tech­nology opens up new pos­si­bil­i­ties for the automa­tion of plant and machinery and shows great promise as an appli­ca­tion in indus­trial envi­ron­ments. What’s more, if the focus is on a holistic tech­nology con­cept, as it is at Pilz, this brings one major advan­tage in prac­tice: it sim­pli­fies imple­men­ta­tion!