Industrial Application of DTMF Communication in Robotics

Abstract

We here by present controlling of cranes, electrical appliances using Dual Tone Multi Frequency (DTMF) technology. The crane is controlled by a mobile phone that makes a call to another mobile phone attached to the crane's control panel. During the call, if any button is pressed, tone corresponding to that button is heard at the other end of the call. This tone is received through headset which is subsequently used to relay the commands to a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) that would perform switching action of motors, connected to the moving parts of the crane or electrical devices. Similarly in the place of motor driver if we replace it with relay driver we can control different electrical appliances also. With advantages of simplicity, audibility, cost effectiveness & unlimited range the hypothesis is that DTMF could replace Radio Frequency (RF) in simple communications. This paper proposes other application areas, such as Industrial environments, where DTMF is feasible and would be advantageous over RF. In this fashion, direction of motion of the crane can be remotely controlled by a mobile phone by DTMF technology via Global System for Mobile communication (GSM). The major advantage of DTMF over RF is the wide range of network provided by DTMF where ever the network of mobile is available we can implement this technology where as in RF the drawback is it low coverage area.