BRX Motion Control with IIoT from AutomationDirect

In this video, we demonstrate some of the advanced motion control features and MQTT communication capabilities of the BRX series PLC. MQTT is a lightweight protocol designed for micro controllers. It allows it the PLC to communicate to IT infrastructure and IOT platforms. If you send messages over the internet, these messages need to be encrypted. BRX includes MQTT over TLS to securely transmit messages. The PLC instruction set provides all you need to retrieve the JSON that s embedded in the MQTT message. The BRX PLC has specific instructions to parse and format JSON which is typically the format used in the MQTT protocol. In the first example we demonstrate a simple but difficult task: Finding out the status of the PLC. In the past, this would require a control engineer to open the programming software and in some instances open the PLC cabinet itself. Newer PLCs have an embedded website for you to check the status, but what if we could just ask the PLC what the status was? OK Google, ask BRX Status. Alright, here's the test version of BRX. Hi Smiley, I currently have zero errors and two warnings. Three of my inputs are on and one of my outputs are on. In this example, we ask the Google assistant Hey google, ask BRX status? When the request is made to the Google assistant, the google assistant hands the message to node red which is a codeless processing agent that can enrich the JSON which it then sends to the IBM Watson IOT platform. This platform then directs the message to the BRX PLC which parses the JSON and returns the appropriate status. What if you could use the google assistant to actually execute commands in the PLC? OK Google, ask BRX to go home. OK, let's get the test version of BRX. OK Smiley, got it. I am going home in a few seconds. Stay clear. As you can see, the PLC executed the program. BRX PLCs support up to 27 different axes of motion. You can also have up to 7 groups of coordinated motion with up to 4 axes in each group. As you can see when we home the delta robot. The last example, I ask Google: OK Google, ask BRX run program one . Alright, let's get the test version of BRX. OK Smiley, I will run program one in a few seconds. Please stay clear of my arms. Using BRX coordinated motion, we were able to coordinate the motion for the delta robot in a pick and place application. Of course, in the real world there would be safety concerns doing this, however, there are applications that do not have safety concerns that could be easily integrated with this same solution. If you would like to learn more about how this was completed, please leave comments below.