Inter national J our nal of Electrical and Computer Engineering (IJECE) V ol. 10, No. 5, October 2020, pp. 5139 5146 ISSN: 2088-8708, DOI: 10.11591/ijece.v10i5.pp5139-5146 r 5139 Lo w-cost and portable automatic sheet cutter Mohd Syafiq Mispan 1 , Ahmad Hafizzudin Mustafa 2 , Hafez Sarkawi 3 , Aiman Zakwan Jidin 4 1,4 Micro and Nano Electronics (MiNE), Malaysia 3 Adv ance Sensors and Embedded Controls System (ASECs), Malaysia 1,3 Centre for T elecommunication Research and Inno v ation (CeTRI), Malaysia 1,2,3,4 F akulti T eknologi K ejuruteraan Elektrik dan Elektronik, Uni v ersiti T eknikal Malaysia Melaka, Malaysi a Article Inf o Article history: Recei v ed Feb 12, 2020 Re vised Apr 15, 2020 Accepted Apr 25, 2020 K eyw ords: Arduino Automation Cutter Stepper motor ABSTRA CT Process automation is crucial to increase producti vity , more ef ficient use of materials, better product quality , impro v ed safety , etc. In small-medium enterprise (SME) b usinesses related to household retailing, one of the process automation needed is the measurement and cutting of the m at or sheet, made of rubber or polyvin yl chloride (PVC) materials. Most of the household retailers that selling the sheet, the process of measuring and cutting according to the customer’ s requirements are manually performed using a measuring tape and scissors. These manual processes can cause inaccurac y in length, inef ficient use of material , lo w producti vity and reduce product quality . This paper presents a lo w cost and portable automatic sheet cutter using the Arduino de v elopment board, which is used to control the process of measuring and cutting the materials. The system uses a push-b utton where the user can set the required length and quantity of the sheet. Once the required information is set, the step- per motor rolls the sheet until the required length is satisfied. Subsequently , another stepper motor mo v es the cutter horizontally and cut the sheet. W ith the automatic sheet cutt er , the material is cut wit h acceptable precision. The design of the automatic sheet cutter is lo w cost and portable which significantly suitable to be used by SME household retailers. Copyright © 2020 Insitute of Advanced Engineeering and Science . All rights r eserved. Corresponding A uthor: Mohd Syafiq Mispan, F akulti T eknologi K ejuruteraan Elektrik dan Elektronik, Uni v ersiti T eknikal Malaysia Melaka, Malaysia. Email: syafiq.mispan@utem.edu.my 1. INTR ODUCTION Adv anced manuf acturing industries that in v olv e in the material cutting process, often the process is automated using adv anced high-precision cutting m achines and widely used within the f acilities. The adv anced and high precision automatic cutting machine helps in increasing the producti vit y , quality , and ef ficienc y of the cutting process. Figure 1 illustrates the automatic cutting machine using ultrasonic and electric rotary cutting tools manuf actured by S.M.E Engineering which is used for cut ting f abric materials [1]. The type of machine that used adv anced cutting technology is suitable for high profitable adv anced manuf acturing industries which demands a high precision cutting machine. Ne v ertheless, adv anced automatic cutter machines are costly and huge. One of the cutting applications in small-medium enterprise (SME) b usinesses related to household retailing is the cutting of mat or sheet made of rubber or polyvin yl chloride (PVC) materials. The mat/sheet is used as a floor or table mat. Most household retailers adapted the manual process of measuri ng and cutting using a measuring tape and scissors. Ho we v er , the manual process often causes inaccurac y in length and inef fi- cient use of materials. T o use the aforementioned adv anced machines are not suitable for household retailers as the y are costly and huge. Moreo v er , household retailers require an unsophisticated automatic cutting machine with merely acceptable precision. J ournal homepage: http://ijece .iaescor e .com Evaluation Warning : The document was created with Spire.PDF for Python.
5140 r ISSN: 2088-8708 Figure 1. Automatic cutting system with ultrasonic and electric rotary cutting tools [1] Se v eral automatic cutter machines are proposed in the past. Mende et al. , [2] proposed an automatic v e getable leaf cutter using image processing and embedded system techniques. The proposed automatic machine is used to cut the leafy green v e getables which are hea vily consumed in restaurants, hotels, wedding ceremon y , etc. The i mage processing technique is used to perform quality checking to separate the good and the bad v e getables by capturing the image of the lea v es. The leafy v e getables proceed to the cutting process if its quality is good. Otherwise, the bad leafy v e getables are deposited into the bad quality bin. In a study , an automatic carpet edge-cutting system based on computer vision to impro v e the production and quali ty of the product is proposed [3]. A similar approach of using a computer vision technique is proposed in [4, 5]. Another technique of using a laser to cut the paper is proposed in [6]. Jung et al. , [7] proposed an automatic cutting machine for glass material in a product line of a touch screen panel. The manual cutting tends to damage the glass due t o un-e v en pressure applied by the w ork ers onto the glass. Hence, the automated glass cutting machine is proposed to impro v e the production yield rate. In a recent study , Lakhe et al. , [8] designed an automatic cutting machine using a pneumatic technique for metal pipes and rods. The pipe is manually clamped to the machine before the cutting process tak es place. Else where, Phakphonhamin et al. , [9] conducted a study to optimize the performance of the LECTRA automatic f abric cutting machine. LECTRA is the manuf acturer of the adv anced automatic cutting machines. The optimization focuses on impro ving w ork practices and the w orkloads of the operator . In the past, a major study w as focusing on optimization of the cutting process to impro v e the reliability , precision, ef ficienc y , wear and tear , etc., [10–22]. In other studies, [23, 24], the automation process to change the cutter tools is proposed. Based on all the abo v e, generally , the study in the automation of cutting applications can be cate go- rized into t w o cate gories which are de v el opment and process optimization. This paper focuses on de v eloping the automation system for measuring and cutting the sheet made of rubber or PVC for SME b usinesses related to household retailing. The automated design recei v es user inputs such as the length and quantity of the sheet. This information is sent to the Arduino which controlled the process of rolling (i.e., according to the length k e y-ed in by the user) and cutting the sheet by utilizing tw o stepper motors. The lo w-cost components are used to de v elop the automatic sheet cutter system and the design is portable to suit the demands for SME house- hold retailers. Moreo v er , the automated sheet cutter is e xpected to incr ease the producti vity and quality of the product, and increase the ef ficienc y of the material’ s usage. 2. METHODOLOGY In this section, the methodology to design the lo w-cost and portable automatic sheet cutter is described. The proposed design must be able to recei v e tw o user inputs which are the quantity and the length of the sheet. Based on these specifications, the operation of the automatic sheet cutter is de v eloped as illustrated in Figure 2. The sheet cutter can be operated in a dual-mode which are manual and automatic modes. In the manual operation mode, the user can control the mo v ement of the roller (i.e., used to roll the sheet) or the cutter by pressing up/do wn or left/right b uttons, respecti v ely . In the automatic mode, first, the sheet must be set in a zero (i.e., initial) position. The zero position can be set manually by rolling up or do wn the sheet using up/do wn b uttons. Once the zero position is achie v ed, the user can enter the quantity and the length of the sheet. The Int J Elec & Comp Eng, V ol. 10, No. 5, October 2020 : 5139 – 5146 Evaluation Warning : The document was created with Spire.PDF for Python.
Int J Elec & Comp Eng ISSN: 2088-8708 r 5141 liquid crystal display (LCD) used to display the quality and length of the sheet which w as set by the user . The sheet cutter operates automatically according to the gi v en inputs once the start b utton is pressed. (a) (b) Figure 2. Operation of the sheet cutter (a) Manual, (b) Automatic Figure 3 depicts the top-le v el architecture of the proposed automatic cutter machine to achie v e the abo v e requirements. The proposed design can be de v eloped using an Arduino Me g a 2560, 2 17HS4401 stepper motor , 2 A4988 stepper motor dri v er , 2 4 push-b utton and I2C 2004 Serial LCD. The user inputs such as length, quantity , mo v ement of the roller , mo v ement of the cutter , and start are set using push-b utton. The Arduino board recei v ed and processed the user inputs to produce outputs that are used to controls the information display on the LCD and the mo v ement of the stepper motors. F ollo wing the design in [25], tw o stepper motors are used to control the mo v ement of the roller and cutter , respecti v ely . A dri v er is needed to dri v e the stepper motor which requires a supply v oltage of 12V DC. On the other hand, an Arduino board requires a supply v oltage of 8V DC. Therefore, a po wer supply circuit is required which consists of a step-do wn transformer (240V A C to 12V A C), A C-to-DC con v erter , and step-do wn con v erter (12V DC to 8V DC). Low-cost and portable automatic sheet cutter (Mohd Syafiq Mispan) Evaluation Warning : The document was created with Spire.PDF for Python.
5142 r ISSN: 2088-8708 A r dui no  M e ga   2560 C ont r ol  B ut t on L C D P ow e r  S upp l y S t e ppe r  M ot or s Figure 3. T op-le v el architecture of the proposed automatic sheet cutter . 3. RESUL T AND AN AL YSIS Figure 4 illustrates the prototype of a fully functional automatic sheet cutter that has been b uilt based on the requirements and components described in Section 2.. The prototype consists of three main parts which are the roller -cutter frame w ork, Ardunio-based controller circuitry , and sheet racking tool. Figure 4a illustrates the roller -cutter frame w ork. The base of the frame w ork is made of steel. As can be seen in Figure 4a, tw o stepper motors are used to control the mo v ement of the roller and cutter , respecti v ely . The roller is made of rubber material to achie v e a maximum grip of the sheet . The roller -cutter frame w ork is designed to ha v e hook-shaped ends such that it can be easily attached or detached (i.e., portable) t o the sheet racking tool. The Arduino-based controller circuitry is sho wn in Figure 4b which has an e xtra feature of a cooling f an system. The po wer supply circuit outputs tw o dif ferent v oltages of 12V and 8V DC to supply the stepper motor dri v er and Arduino de v elopment board, respecti v ely . The sheet racking tool is constructed follo wing the e xisting design used in the household retail shops as depicted in Figure 4c. (a) (b) (c) (d) Figure 4. Prototype of the fully functional automatic sheet cutter (a) Close-up vie w of the roller -cutter frame w ork, (b) Arduino-based controller circuitry , (c) Sheet racking tool, (d) Zero position Int J Elec & Comp Eng, V ol. 10, No. 5, October 2020 : 5139 – 5146 Evaluation Warning : The document was created with Spire.PDF for Python.
Int J Elec & Comp Eng ISSN: 2088-8708 r 5143 When the system is po wered-up, the LCD displays tw o modes of operations which are manual and auto, as sho wn in Figure 5a. A manual mode operation allo ws the user to simply mo v e the roller or cutter by pressing appropriate push-b utton, as descri bed in Figure 2a. Before selecting the auto mode, the user has to set the sheet in a zero (initial) position which can only be done in manual mode. A zero position is achie v ed when the sheet’ s end is perpendicular to the cutter’ s blade. Once a zero position is achie v ed, the auto mode can be selected which displays the sequence of the menu as illustrated in Figure 5b. The user has to k e y-in the quantity and length of the sheet. T o start the cutting process, the user has to push the start b utton. The LCD displays ’CUTTING’ indicating the process of cutting and ’FINISH’ is displayed once the cutting process completed. (a) (b) Figure 5. LCD menu (a) Main display , (b) Auto menu T able 1. Comparison of the required length and the cut length for quantity > 1 Required Length (cm) Cut Length (cm) j j (cm) 5 5.4 0.4 5 4.9 0.1 5 5.2 0.2 10 10.3 0.3 10 10.1 0.1 10 10.3 0.3 The performance of the automatic sheet cutter in Figure 4 is measured and analyzed using Root M ean Square Error (RMSE) as described in (1), where ^ y i is the predicted v alue, y i is the tar get v alue and n is the number of measurements. R M S E = v u u t n X i =1 ( ^ y i y i ) 2 n (1) T able 1 sho ws the accurac y of the automatic sheet cutter when the length is set to 5cm and 10cm. F or each length, the quantity is set to 3 ( n = 3 ). Inaccurac y in length is observ ed b ut it is consistent for all the readings. This observ ation indicates that the dif ference between the required length and the cut length, j j is independent of the required length. Subsequently , the quantity is increases to 15 ( n = 15 ) for each of the required length in T able 1. Gi v en n =15 and by using (1), the RMSE is computed and obtained the v alues of 0.227cm and 0.234cm, respecti v el y for a required length of 5cm and 10cm. The RMSE for both required lengths is quite close and agreed with an early observ ation from the tab ulated data in T able 1. T o furt her quantify this observ ation, another set of e xperiments is conducted. The quantity is set to 1 whereas the length of the sheet is increased gradually by 1cm within the range of 4cm to 10cm with a total of 7 measurements ( n = 7 ). T able 2 sho ws the cutting results. The minimum and maximum of j j are 0.2cm and 0.5cm, respecti v ely . Meanwhile, RMSE is computed using (1) for n = 7 which obtained a v alue of about 0.344cm. The results of j j and RMSE from a tab ulated data in T able 2 is slightly bigger than j j in T able 1 and pre viously computed RMSE which based on the e xtended data of T able 1 (i.e., n = 15 for each of the required length). The main reason is because of the results in T able 1 are based on the continuous cutting process (i.e. quantity > 1 for a required length). This discrepanc y leads to an identification of tw o f actors that Low-cost and portable automatic sheet cutter (Mohd Syafiq Mispan) Evaluation Warning : The document was created with Spire.PDF for Python.
5144 r ISSN: 2088-8708 causing inaccurac y in length. These f actors are parallax error during the setting of zero position and the friction during the rolling process. The parallax error can be a v oided by using the auto-zeroing sensor . Furthermore, the friction-less material can be used as a roller’ s material to ensure a fine rolling process. Both solutions could incur a high cost to the de v elopment of the automatic sheet cutter . The accurac y of the proposed automatic sheet cutter sho wn in T ables 1 and 2 are acceptable for the usage of household retail shops. The de v elopment of the automatic sheet cutter is considered as lo w cost as no adv anced cutting technologies in v olv ed. T able 2. Comparison of the required length and the cut length for quantity=1. Required Length (cm) Cut Length (cm) j j (cm) 4 4.5 0.5 5 5.3 0.3 6 5.6 0.4 7 7.4 0.4 8 7.8 0.2 9 9.2 0.2 10 10.3 0.3 4. FUTURE W ORKS The prototype of the automatic sheet cutter proposed in this study has not been considering the feed- back between the roller and the main controller (i.e., Arduino). Gi v en a situation, for e xample, the roller rolls the sheet and it reaches the end of the sheet. The s ystem will continue to roll as this incident is not captured by the system. Therefore, for future impro v ement, limit switches are required at the roller to notify the system that this incident has occurred and the system returns an in v alid measurement. 5. CONCLUSION Automation is crucial to increase the producti vity and quality of the product, and increase the ef- ficienc y of the material’ s usage. In SME household retailing b usinesses, process automation is needed to impro v e the manual process of measuring and cutting the mat or sheet made of rubber or PVC materials. The mat or sheet often use as a floor or table mat. A lo w-cost and portable automatic sheet cutter is proposed in this study to fulfills the demands in the household retailing field. The proposed design consists of three main parts which are Arduino-based controller circuitr y , roller -cutter frame w ork, and sheet racking tool. The sheet racking tool is follo wing the e xisting design used in household retail shops. Theref o r e, the design of the roller - cutter frame w ork can be simply fitted to the e xisting sheet racking tool. The accurac y of the automatic sheet cutter is acceptable with a maximum de viation observ ed is 0 : 5 cm of the required length. The automatic sheet cutter costs reasonably cheap as no adv anced cutting technologies in v olv ed. A CKNO WLEDGEMENT The authors w ould lik e to thank Uni v ersiti T eknikal Malaysia Melaka for pro viding ins trumentation de vices and financial supports to complete this project. REFERENCES [1] S. Engineering, “SM-400-T A Automatic X/Y Cutting System W ith Ultrasonic and Electric Rotary Cutting T ools, ” 2020. [Online]. A v ailable: http://www .smre.it/sm-400-ta [2] V . Mande and M. Lakhe, “Automatic v e getable leaf cutter based on Matlab and embedded systems, ” in International Confer ence for Con ver g ence in T ec hnolo gy , 2018, pp. 1–4. [3] Q. Zhang, H. Luo, W . Zhu, G. Qi, and Y . W ang, “Design and implementation of a automatic carpet edge-cutting system, ” in IEEE International Confer ence on Mec hatr onics and A utomation , 2016, pp. 2582–2586. [4] W . Shang and Q. Y an, “V i sion-based automati c die-cutting system with high-precision, ” in IEEE Interna- tional Confer ence on Information and A utomation , 2015, pp. 1127–1131. [5] M. Flemmer and L. T ang, “Computer vision for automatic accurate plasma arc cutting measurement, ” in International Confer ence on Mec hatr onics and Mac hine V ision in Pr actice , 2017, pp. 1–6. Int J Elec & Comp Eng, V ol. 10, No. 5, October 2020 : 5139 – 5146 Evaluation Warning : The document was created with Spire.PDF for Python.
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5146 r ISSN: 2088-8708 BIOGRAPHIES OF A UTHORS Mohd Syafiq Mispan recei v ed B.Eng Electrical (Electronics) and M.Eng Electrical (Computer and Microelectronic System) from Uni v ersiti T eknologi Malaysia, M alaysia in 2007 and 2010 respec- ti v ely . He had e xperienced w orking in semiconductor industries from 2007 until 2014 before pursu- ing his Ph.D. de gree. He obtained his Ph.D. de gree in Electronics and Electrical Engineering from Uni v ersity of Southampton, United Kingdom in 2018. He is currently a senior lecturer in F akulti T eknologi K ejuruteraan Elektrik dan Elektronik, Uni v ersiti T eknikal Malaysia Melaka. His current research interests include hardw are security , CMOS rel iability , VLSI design, and Electronic Systems Design. Ahmad Hafizzuddin Mustafa recei v ed a Diploma of Electronic Engineering (Computer) from Ungku Omar Polytechnic (PUO), Malaysia. He is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Computer Engi- neering T echnology (Computer Systems) at the Uni v ersiti T eknikal Malaysia Melaka. Hafez Sarkawi recei v ed B.Eng Electrical (Electronics) fr om Uni v ersiti T eknologi Malaysia in 2007 and M.Eng (Industrial Electronics and Control) from Uni v ersiti Malaya in 2012. Currently , he is a Lecturer at the F akulti T eknologi K ejuruteraan Ele ktrik dan Elektronik, Uni v ersiti T eknikal Malaysia Melaka and with the Adv ance Sensors & Embedded Controls System (ASECs) research group. His research interests include po wer elec tronics and control systems such as DC-DC con v erter , rob ust control, and h ybrid control. Aiman Zakwan Jidin obtained his M.Eng in Electronic and Microelectronic System Engineering from ESIEE Engineering P aris France in 2011. He has 2 years of w orking e xperience in designing digital IC and digital system in FPGA at Altera Corporation Malays ia, before joining Uni v ersiti T eknikal Malaysia Melaka as lecturer and researcher , in Electronics and Computer Engineering. His research interests include FPGA Design and Digital System Design Int J Elec & Comp Eng, V ol. 10, No. 5, October 2020 : 5139 – 5146 Evaluation Warning : The document was created with Spire.PDF for Python.