aDBF: an autonomous electromagnetic noise filtering mechanism for industrial environments

Abstract

The use of proprietary systems in Industry 4.0 often involves high economic costs. To address this issue, using low-cost devices with similar capabilities is becoming an increasingly popular alternative. However, these devices are prone to suffer the negative effects of electromagnetic interference (EMI) due to their placement in electrical panels alongside other electromechanical devices. To solve this problem, this article presents the autonomous Data Base Filter (aDBF). aDBF is an enhanced electromagnetic interference filtering mechanism capable of eliminating erroneous signals generated by EMI. aDBF has been specifically designed to autonomously (i.e., without the need for operator supervision or intervention) determine both the number of different product types elaborated in a production line, and the time instants when their manufacturing process starts and ends. In particular, aDBF goes through three stages: (i) pre-filtering, (ii) product change detection, and (iii) identification of valid signals. The results obtained after validating our proposal in three different manufacturing shifts demonstrate that the aDBF filtering mechanism works very accurately, as the maximum error introduced is of 0.93%.