The PC-10 people counter for use in retail
Originally designed as a maker project to aid social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, a ready-to-use version has now been developed to enable customers to quickly ‘plug-and-count’. The PC-10 monitors the number of people entering and leaving a room and uses a simple traffic light display combined with a buzzer to control the flow. This is highly beneficial in environments such as retail, catering, pharmacies or service providers, where the volume of people in confined spaces can make maintaining the safe recommended distance from others difficult.
The entire system is provided in a heavy-duty aluminium enclosure from Bosch Rexroth (350x360x1180mm), with a stainless-steel base and weighing 12kg. This houses two SICK visible light barrier beam sensors that detect the direction of movement, along with a lococube Barth mini-PLC STG-800, which features a CAN bus and five I/O interfaces. The PC-10, which operates offline and so requires no internet connection, continuously calculates the number of people moving in and out of the room in real time. A password-protected Barth DMA-15 2.4in CAN colour HMI touch screen is located on the rear of the unit and provides the user interface, allowing store owners to pre-set the maximum people limit. The PLC also drives the five 12V/3W power LED modules included, that serve as a ‘traffic light’ system, illuminating Go in green when access is granted and Stop in red when access is denied. The buzzer, also located on the rear, acts as an audio alert.
RS Components – www.rs-components.com
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