Wondering how do automatic doors work? Then here all your doubts about sensors, automatic door system will be cleared.
Automatic Door Systems mostly work with motion detection sensors and optical sensors that make up the electrical system of the door to realize the opening and closing of the doors. Of course, it’s not that simple. You can have detailed information about the working logic of Automatic Sliding Doors in the rest of our article.
Automatic Door Systems
Automatic Door Systems are an important technology that adds functionality and functionality to ordinary doors we know to make our lives easier. Nowadays, it is frequently used in airports, workplaces, shopping malls, schools, and hospitals.
It facilitates our lives in many aspects such as the ease of passage of our friends who use wheelchairs, and the elimination of difficulties such as keeping the door open or closed in areas such as shops and shops. To give an example most simply, you have shopped at a shopping center and you will be driving to your vehicle. The room is full, neither in your hands, do not worry, automatic door systems are available everywhere in our country, but in all shopping centers.
How Do Automatic Sliding Door Systems Work?
Automatic doors transmit an activation signal to the electronic card inside, with the help of the sensors in the door electronic installation, as a result of the motion detection of the sensors along with the viewing angles. When the electronic brain of the Sliding Door System receives the signal, it activates the gear motor in the mechanical parts and enables the door to be opened with the help of belts and pulleys.
What Are The Sliding Door Parts?
After answering the question of How the Automatic Door Works from a technical point of view, let’s examine together what are the Automatic Door Parts.
There are basically two different components in Automatic Doors: mechanical and electrical parts. First, let’s examine systems that contain electricity. Electrical parts of an Automatic Door are as follows;
- Transformer
- Activation Sensor
- Security Sensor
- Lock Systems
- Control Mechanism (Controller)
Transformer: It can be considered as the simplest part of Automatic Sliding Door systems. In addition, there is an additional fuse at the transformer outputs in larger diameter gates that consume more power.
Activation Sensor: Activation sensors send a signal to the door controller and trigger the automatic sliding door to open and close.
Security Sensor: Protection sensors detect entities such as objects and people in the opening and closing situations of the automatic door and send a signal to the brain.
Control Mechanism (Controller): We can think of the controller as the heart of sliding doors. So much so that its components range from analogy circuits to microprocessors. These components are integrated with an automation system.
Mechanical Parts of Sliding Door Systems
If we examine the mechanical parts of Automatic Doors, it consists of the following components.
- Drive Motor and Overheating Relay
- Lock Systems
- Fan Window
- Lintel
- Sliding door
- Fixed Panel
Drive Motor and Overheating Relay: Sliding Doors use high-power-resistant drive motors. The extreme heat relay is used to make the system longer life.
Lock Systems: Locks are one of the most important parts of sliding door systems. Automatic Sliding Doors typically have 2 types of locks. These are electromagnetic lock and electromechanical lock systems.
Fan Window (Over Door Window): It is a piece made of glass or aluminum, which is mounted between the ceiling and the sliding door head, also called the door top window.
Lento: It is the area where door drivers and sensors are mounted. Lintel, one of the construction terms, functions similarly in sliding doors.
Sliding Door Panel: It is the name given to the panels used in automatic door systems. Frames made of aluminum and stainless steel are often used. Tempered glasses are used for safety purposes as glass.
Fixed Sliding Door Panel: It is a component that varies according to the type of manufacture. It refers to the fixed parts of automatic door systems that do not move.
Procedure of an Automatic Door System
When a human is in front of the PIR sensor in a stationary state, the PIR sensor will calculate the wavelength produced by the human body.
This constant wavelength causes the resulting heat energy to be described almost the same as the surrounding environmental conditions.
When humans make movements, the human body will produce passive infrared rays with varying wavelengths so that they produce different heat. The resulting heat will be detected by Pyroelectric sensors and converted into different currents. The resulting current is forwarded to the ADC (Analog to Digital Converter) to continue to the microcontroller.
The microcontroller processes the signal from the ADC and then determines the action that must be taken, namely opening or closing the door. This decision is sent in the form of a digital signal so that it must be converted by a DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) so that the actuator system can understand it.
In this automatic sliding door system, a DC motor is used as an actuator to drive the sliding door. The voltage generated by the DAC is generally only 0 to 5 volts so that an additional 12 VDC power supply is needed to be able to drive the DC motor.
Control system of Sliding Door
This Automatic Sliding Door using infrared sensors consists of several components, namely:
- The sensor circuit serves as an indicator of the presence or absence of the detected object. This sensor consists of Fresnel Lens, IR Filter, Pyroelectric sensor, amplifier, and comparator.
- The microcontroller contains application programs that function to control the performance of the entire system.
- The motor driver circuit functions as a DC motor polarity controller (so that the motor can be driven in two directions to open and close the door).
- The power supply circuit functions to convert the 220 VAC current into 5 Volt DC voltage which is used as the voltage source in the controller system circuit and the sensor system as well as the 12Volt DC voltage in the actuator/motor system circuit
- ADC (Analog to Digital Converter), functions so that the input signal can be processed by the microcontroller, and DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) so that the microcontroller output signal can be understood by the actuator system.
Sensors Used in Automatic Door System
Automatic doors work using sensor technology. A sensor is a device that can detect the presence of a person or other object when the person or object approaches the automatic door.
These sensors are usually located around the automatic door, as well as on both sides — the outside and the inside. The sensor then activates a system that will drive the motor, which will open and close the door automatically.
The sensors commonly used in automatic doors are optical sensors, motion sensors, body heat sensors, pressure sensors, and remote sensors. Here’s an explanation of how it works.
The sensors commonly used in automatic doors are optical sensors, motion sensors, body heat sensors, pressure sensors, and remote sensors. Here’s an explanation of how it works.
Optical sensor
the sensor emits an infrared curtain of light that is invisible to the eye at a certain range. The sensor will react when someone or something blocks the infrared light emitted.
When someone enters an area that is illuminated by this light, the light beam will be disturbed and become incomplete. That causes the door-closing command program to interfere and interrupting that program automatically causes the door to open. When the object has moved away from the distance of the sensor range so that the sensor beam returns intact, the door automatically closes again.
Motion sensor Motion
the sensor emits microwave radar. The way it works is not much different from the way an optical sensor works. When someone or something is within its radar range, the sensor will react to open the automatic door. When the person or object has moved away, the door will close again.
Body heat sensor
When someone is in front of the body heat sensor, the sensor will calculate the wavelength produced by the human body. When the person is at rest, the resulting wavelength is constant and causes the heat energy it produces to be almost the same as the conditions in the surrounding environment.
However, when the string moves, the resulting wavelength will be variable, resulting in a different heat from the surrounding environmental conditions. The heat generated is then detected by sensors, and followed by an automatic door opening reaction.
Pressure sensor
This form of the sensor is commonly used in automatic doors in malls or shopping centers. The pressure sensor is usually placed under the mat in front of the door.
The sensor will react to the heavy pressure of the object above it. When the sensor accepts the minimum weight limit required to open the door, the door will automatically open.
Remote sensor
The remote sensor requires a remote controller that operates it manually to open and close the door. This type of sensor is usually used on automatic garage doors.
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Thanks for reading this article on how automatic doors work.
