Industrial Automation

A track-mounted, in-the-hole raise drill that bores holes from 3.5 to 48 inches underground, operated by radio remote. Every rod change means breaking threaded joints apart, a repetitive and hazardous job when it's done by hand.

The goal was to make rod handling automatic, keeping the operator in control and informed at every step.

Automated breakout

• Rebuilt the upper breakout sequence around rotary encoder feedback instead of timers, and made it a defined operating mode with its own interlocks and precondition checks.
• Designed and tuned the lower breakout sequence on the machine, including the edge cases where the pipe isn't secured.
• Operator messages on the radio remote show each step of the sequence and every fault state.

Sensor-guided pipe handling

• A detection sequence rotates the pipe until its wrench flats line up with the breakout jaw.
• Evaluated proximity, laser, retroreflective and ultrasonic sensors against dirt, water and different pipe materials, then settled on an analog ultrasonic control strategy.
• Tuned rotation speed and debounce on the machine, and recommended production sensors.

Engineering practice

• Put the CODESYS project under Git with feature branches, and documented both sequences with state-flow diagrams, interlock definitions and release notes.
• Traced an incorrect weight-on-bit reading to a calculation that could go validly negative under holdback pressure, rather than a sensor or comms fault.