EVALUATING THE RELIABILITY OF COUPLED CONVEYORS
Saju A. Kuruvilla · OhioLink ETD Center (Ohio Library and Information Network) · 2007
Conveyor systems are critical subsystems in many automation systems.Networked embedded devices, such as tiny micro-controllers that are integrated with sensors, actuators and low power radio transceivers, significantly impact the design of future such systems by offering flexible topologies, reduced wiring costs and distributed controllers.To exploit the benefits offered by these technologies, a study of the reliability and dependability of such systems that are regulated by an integrated, embedded, distributed collection of microcontrollers is an important problem.This thesis presents an approach to evaluate the reliability of composable conveyor systems using Fault Trees as the modeling paradigm.The valuable information provided by the methodology, to navigate the design space of such conveyor systems, is illustrated using several examples.The results indicate that while the reliability of sensors has little effect on system-level reliability, wireless link reliability has a significant impact.In the future, similar investigations can focus on developing a methodology for evaluating the reliability of composable automation systems.interest in me and giving me an opportunity to work on such an interesting topic and helping me to organize and finally realize this research.He has shown a large and consistent interest in my project during the time and provided me unflinching encouragement and support in various ways.I express my gratitude to committee members, Dr. Grover and Dr. Giakos, for providing suggestions and comments for this thesis.I would like to thank the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at The University of Akron for supporting