Ultrasonic sensors for the packaging industry

The packaging industry is diverse: everything from pharmaceutical products to food and consumer goods is packaged. To ensure that processes run smoothly and safely, sensors must measure rapidly, reliably and precisely.

PiL Sensors offers a wide range of ultrasonic sensors for the packaging industry:

Typical applications

• Detection of positions, volume and fill level
• Detection of individual objects
• Height detection
• Jam control

PET bottle washing system

Ultrasonic barriers from the P48 series are used in a cleaning system for PET bottles to check for jams.

Fast processes in the bottling and beverage industry usually require switching sensors with high switching frequencies. The US barriers of the P48 series have high switching frequencies of 150 Hz and detect objects regardless of their colour. Even transparent glass or PET bottles pose no problem for US sensors.

Jam control during vegetable packing

Ultrasonic barriers from the P48 series are used in a fruit packaging system to check for jams in transparent plastic trays.

The small, fast-switching ultrasonic barriers reliably detect thin-walled, transparent objects. Capacitive sensors cannot be used due to the thin walls. Throughbeam photoelectric sensors can also switch incorrectly due to the transparent, reflective material.

Capsule control for tablets

In a packaging machine for tablets, ultrasonic sensors are used to monitor whether the plastic packaging is closed with a cap.

Ultrasonic sensors from the P43 series have a narrow switching beam that enables the detection of small objects. Thanks to very good interference echo suppression, the sensors do not influence each other. If synchronisation is nevertheless required, sensors from the P47 series can also be used

Height control of pallets

In a pallet control system, the number of pallets in a stack is controlled using ultrasonic height control.

Ultrasonic sensors can detect objects regardless of their colour. If the format is changed, e.g. from wooden to plastic pallets, optical sensors may have to be readjusted or may fail. PiL ultrasonic sensors from the P41 series and P47 series can be synchronised to prevent multiple sensors from interfering with each other.