The Many Faces of Industrial Automation: From Trade Shows to Factories and Beyond

The demand for industrial automation is unstoppable. By 2030, it is expected to grow 9.3 percent per year to reach US $307.7 billion. That is a significant increase from a valuation of US $165.1 billion in 2023.

Why is this so?

Industrial automation is good for business—and employees and customers. It increases efficiency and productivity, helping manufacturers do more in less time. 

For employees, industrial automation improves working conditions, making processes safer and more environmentally friendly. Customers, of course, benefit too, often with higher-quality products, expedited service, and competitive prices.

At Mouser, we’re always looking for ways to enhance the customer experience, which inspired us to transform our Spin to Win game with an industrial automation twist.

Spin to Win

If you’ve ever visited a Mouser trade show booth, you’re likely to be familiar with our Spin to Win game where we invite visitors to our stand to spin a wheel, which determines if they’re going to get a 1-star, 2-star, or 3-star gift.

While 1-star and 2-star gifts are exciting, what trade show attendees covet are the highly exclusive 3-star gifts—often engineering board development kits.

We typically have a long queue of participants, all attempting a chance at winning a 3-star gift. Our employees at the booth also demonstrate the game several times during the day, which can lead to long line-ups that can be difficult for trade show attendees to wait through.

That’s where industrial automation comes in.

For our latest trade show, we developed a demo featuring a robot arm and an industrial conveyor belt to automate and speed up the process of getting a 3-star gift. Here’s how it works:

1. A Spin to Win participant spins the wheel which lands on a 3-star gift.
2. The conveyor belt controlled by an industrial-grade Arduino PLC, the Arduino Opta, is triggered to turn on when a participant wins a 3-star gift on the Spin to Win wheel.
3. A Universal Robots UR3e robot arm picks up a 3-star gift box and places it onto the conveyor belt. The robotic arm follows a pre-programmed path that does not use computer vision or sensors. This means that the gift boxes must always be placed in the same position and the conveyor belt must remain stationary in its designated location. With these conditions met, the robotic arm can reliably follow its pre-programmed path to grab the box and place it on the conveyor belt, performing this task thousands of times with precision and consistency. This type of robotic arm is a cobot—a collaborative robot that works alongside humans. It contains force/torque sensors that detect if it accidentally touches a human, which immediately stops the robot to ensure safety.
4. The conveyor belt is fitted with an IR sensor, which detects the placement of the gift box by the robot. As the box passes the sensor, the counter tracks the number of gift boxes and displays the number on a screen. While the counter feature may sound simple, it adds significant benefits for our trade show team. They no longer have to manually track how many 3-star gifts we’re giving away at each show (which is often in the hundreds!).
5. In addition to the IR sensor, the conveyor belt has another sensor that measures the location of the gift box on the conveyor belt from start to finish and tracks its movement along the conveyor belt using Banner Engineering’s WLF12 Pro Flexible Multicolor LED Strip Lights. This feature is a big conversation starter for participants, who are keen to understand how the sensor can translate the distance the box travels using pulse-frequency modulation (PFM) and turn on the correct LEDs on the LED strip. Similar technology can be used to measure the volume of liquid in a tank, for example, to indicate how full the tank is.
6. The engineers visiting our booth are naturally curious about how our conveyor belt works and love to get up close to it, which is all the more reason to prioritize safety: A large industrial-grade safety button, when pushed, immediately stops the belt—because nothing’s worse than someone’s tie or hair getting caught in the belt!  The button is connected to an industrial safety relay and is certified to handle high voltages. It is highly durable and reliable, as a safety button for industrial applications needs to be.
7. As the gift box reaches the end of the conveyor belt, it meets another IR sensor, which detects when the conveyor belt has to stop so that the participant can pick up their gift box. This sensor also prevents the boxes from falling off the conveyor belt, ensuring it turns off at the right moment.

Robotic Arms and Conveyor Belts

While this robotic arm with an industrial conveyor belt greatly enhanced our Spin to Win game for our team and game participants at trade shows, that’s not the only use for this technology, of course.

For example, the Arduino PLC is ideal for factories, assembly lines, and manufacturing facilities where high reliability, durability, and consistency are important factors. It helps organizations manage high volumes of products in a safe and dependable manner.

The Universal Robots UR3e robot arm can be applied to many use cases as well. It excels in precision-driven tasks like assembly, quality inspection, and pick-and-place applications, making it ideal for industries such as electronics, medical devices, and small-scale manufacturing. 

Its compact size and lightweight design allow it to work efficiently in tight spaces, handling delicate components with accuracy and consistency. From assembling circuit boards to performing durability tests or organizing small products in packaging lines, the UR3e streamlines the process while maintaining safety and flexibility for collaborative environments. 

How Will You Use Industrial Automation?

You don’t need a trade show Spin to Win game to put the robotic arm and conveyor belt in action. How will you apply industrial automation in your work? We hope you use our example as inspiration and create something innovative of your own.