Although ozone is a naturally occurring gas, it is harmful at high concentration levels and the STERISAFE™-Pro requires that the operator is outside the sealed room while the robot runs its cycle.

 

The operator uses a tablet which is connected wirelessly to the PLC inside the robot. INFUSER has created an app which the operator uses to control the robot. The app interfaces with the built-in webserver in the PLC.

OK, so that sounds easy enough, but accessing a PLC which is inside a hermetically sealed, stainless steel machine which performs surface disinfection, demanded a wireless solution with high performance. 

“When we first started developing STERISAFE™-Pro, we used a regular commercial access point, but we soon realized that we needed something more robust and advanced,” says Thomas Clapper, production responsible at INFUSER.  

“We needed an access point that was omni-radiant and also 100% sealed. This is when we came across the Anybus Wireless Bolt from HMS Industrial Networks.”   

The Anybus Wireless Bolt™ is a wireless access point for on-machine mounting. It can communicate via WLAN or Bluetooth up to 100 meters and is built for harsh industrial conditions both when it comes to the physical housing and the wireless communication. 

It was a perfect fit for STERISAFE.

“We use WLAN to communicate between the PLC inside the robot and the tablet and really benefit from the robust communication that the Wireless Bolt offers. We also needed to design unique connections for each robot/tablet-pair, so that it is possible to run several machines in the same area without radio interference. This is also something that the Anybus Wireless Bolt allowed us to do,” says Thomas Clapper.