Omron STI's OS32C Safety Laser Scanner Named 2010 Plant Engineering Product Of The Year Award Winner
The OS32C Safety Laser Scanner from Omron Scientific Technologies Inc. has been selected as a winner in the 2010 Plant Engineering Product of the Year contest. The world's most compact Type 3 safety laser scanner, the OS32C is a powerful safety solution that is easy to handle and install, and also delivers the versatility needed to solve diverse presence detection and collision avoidance application needs. Now in its 23rd year, Plant Engineering magazine's Product of the Year is manufacturing's most prestigious award for innovations that make manufacturing plants run smarter, safer and more efficiently. The 2010 Product of the Year awards will be presented as part of Plant Engineering's annual Manufacturing/Automation Summit, March 20-22, 2011 at the Hotel Sofitel in downtown Chicago.
"Today's machine builders need smarter and more compact safety solutions to help them build better and more streamlined equipment faster than ever before, and end users need smarter safety solutions that will not only keep their personnel safe, but that will also help them to maximize productivity," says Sergio Aguilar, Product Manager, Omron STI. "The new Safety Laser Scanner OS32C is specifically engineered to deliver superior value and unprecedented versatility in both OEM and retrofit machine safety and AGV collision avoidance applications."
The OS32C features a 104.5 mm profile, light 1.3 kg weight and low 5 W power consumption (3.75 W in standby mode), and boasts innovative features such as highly flexible and easily configurable detection zones to simplify set-up across diverse application needs.
"In addition to being the industry's most compact safety laser scanner, the OS32C is also the first to provide integrated management via Ethernet. This helps keep machines up and running by allowing the user to check the operating state and analyze the cause of an emergency stop via LAN, and take quick corrective action, even in large-scale applications with multiple scanners," explains Aguilar. "The OS32C's status display and eight patented Individual Sector Indicators also enable users to determine at a glance the unit's operating state and error codes, and assess the direction of an intrusion."
The OS32C Safety Laser Scanner features an impressive 270° detection angle that enables a single scanner to provide presence detection, including two warning zones and one safety zone, on two sides of a machine. Its small size also means that it can even be used inside a machine.
Installed vertically, the OS32C serves as a complete intrusion detection solution. The unit's innovative Reference Boundary Monitoring function constantly monitors reference points and turns off the safety outputs when a shift in its physical position is detected. This prevents unauthorized mounting modifications to the laser scanner.
The OS32C Safety Laser Scanner is also a robust and flexible collision avoidance solution that can provide front/rear monitoring, or 270° monitoring, in AGV applications. The OS32C's light weight and compact body make it easy to install, and its low power consumption minimizes battery load. For complex AGV tracks up to 70 zone set combinations can be set, each with one safety zone of up to 3 m and two warning zones of up to 10 m. The two warning zones can be set to support various purposes, such as warning sound and speed control.
The OS32C's simplified I/O wiring method requires fewer inputs to configure multiple zones when compared with other safety laser scanners. This speeds up installation and significantly reduces the potential for wiring errors.
The unit's response time from 80 to 680 ms to prevent erroneous machine stoppages caused by environmental pollutants. Additionally, users can quickly and easily configure the safety and warning zones with the OS32C's easy to use configuration software and a PC. And because each safety laser scanner's configuration is stored in the I/O block, should the sensor ever become damaged it can quickly be replaced, with no reprogramming needed.
SOURCE: OMRON Scientific Technologies Inc.