Automated Overhead Crane Base Pickup and Delivery System

摘要

In any manufacturing environment, material handling operation plays an important role. The effective use of material handling tools and equipment is vital for a proper scheduling and planning of the work flow on the manufacturing plant floor. The result shows that a significant amount of the overall production time is spent on material handling. The objective of the present work is to develop a model of a manual overhead crane and automate it without disturbing the existing sequence of machining and existing equipment. The existing layout and machinery can be used extensively without the requirement of a new setup. Keeping the layout same, the production time can be improved and manufacturing process is simplified. The crane system is controlled via computer using a microcontroller to get a smooth motion of the crane. The system is operated via a man machine interface installed in the control computer. The automated overhead crane can move in six directions, which are right and left, forward and backward and upward and downward. A microcontroller 89S52 coordinates with the computer to do all the operations. Man machine interface on computer is done using Visual Basic. The front panel on the computer shows the position of the crane in real time.