Omron Corporation

Yasushi Miyake

Satoru Shimokawa

Toshinori Sato

Tetsuya Akagi

Takayoshi Takahara

Noboru Kawaike

Takao Nakazaki

Ichiro Kondo

Shunsuke Ito

A multi-beam photoelectric sensor is disclosed which can be fabricated by selecting the length of a light projection/light-receiving columnar member and the number and pitches of optical axes in accordance with the width of a hazardous area of an object or the diameter of the minimum object to be detected. A projector string or a photo-detector string includes an optical module string having an alignment of a plurality of optical modules with an optical system for one optical axis, a light projection circuit for one optical axis and a plurality of flip-flops corresponding to one stage of a shift register, integrated with each other, and a flat cable. The flip-flops in the adjacent optical modules are connected in cascade by the adjacent module conduction wires thereby to make up a shift register. The optical modules making the optical module string are sequentially activated by the data sequentially sent by the shift register.

Area monitoring multi-beam photoelectric sensor

In a light curtain generating device comprising a pair of pillar assemblies for supporting arrays of light emitting and receiving units which are placed opposite to each other so as to form a light curtain for detecting an object between the pillar assemblies, the light emitting and receiving unit arrays each consist of a group of single-beam optical modules so that the length of the arrays of light emitting and receiving units and the pitches of the individual light emitting and receiving units can be selected at will. Therefore, the light curtain generating device can readily adapt itself to each particular application at low cost and in a highly precise manner.

Light curtain generating device including single-beam optical modules

Growing community of inventors

Fukuchiyama, Japan

Yasushi Miyake