Conveyors in Arena

[rwilcox]

In Arena, can conveyors be modeled with sensors (e.g., in real life, the conveyor has a sensor halfway along its length, and if this sensor is triggered by parts backlogging on the conveyor, the sensor "tells" the machine feeding the conveyor to slow down or even stop temporarily)?

[ewilliams]

The Conveyor construct in the Advanced Transfer template does not have this capability, but the Conveyor construct in the Packaging template does. Its Conveyors have Sensors that can become Covered (product backs up) or Uncovered (back up clears). Either of these events can trigger logic of the modeler's choice (such as speeding up or slowing down a machine).

[thayson]

The Advanced Transfer conveyor construct doesn't include sensors (the Packaging conveyor does have sensors) but here are a couple approaches to modeling sensors on these conveyors:
1. Each sensor could be modeled as a Station and entities would be conveyed to each 'sensor station' along the length of the conveyor. Upon arrival at each station, decisions could be made based on the current status of the system. Velocities could be modified, switches triggered, etc.
2. Use control logic (Scans for instance) to monitor the values of selected conveyor variables, such as: CLA (Length of accumulated entities), LC (Number of occupied cells conveying), LEC (Length of conveying cells), NEA (Number of accumulated entities) or NEC (Number of conveying entities). Based on these variables' values, you could then divert entities from the conveyor or adjust its velocity.

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