Robotic Sanding Workflow Platform
Full-stack industrial zone selection and recipe management platform for robotic sanding workflows — with real-time OPC UA PLC integration, polygon-based zone overlays, RFID login, and role-based access tiers deployed on the production floor at Magna International.
Problem
Operators had no standard interface for selecting sanding zones or managing recipes across robotic cells — configuration was manual and inconsistent.
PLC tags were set directly with no audit trail, no validation, and no way to reproduce a previous recipe reliably.
The platform needed to handle real production-floor constraints: RFID-based identity, shift tracking, inactivity timeouts, and live machine state.
Solution
Built a React + Vite frontend and FastAPI backend that renders polygon-based zone overlays on part images and writes zone, recipe, and production metadata directly to OPC UA-connected PLC tags in real time.
Implemented role-based authentication with RFID login support, admin/supervisor/operator access tiers, inactivity session handling, and a full user management system.
Designed a recipe engine with JSON-backed persistent storage, orientation-aware validation, live OPC synchronization, audit logging, and full state persistence across sessions.
Key Engineering Decisions
Chose OPC UA for PLC communication to get live bidirectional machine state without polling — zone and recipe writes reflect immediately on the cell without a separate sync step.
Built the recipe engine as a standalone module so validation rules, storage format, and OPC sync logic can each evolve independently without touching the UI.
Used polygon-based zone overlays (OpenCV-assisted) rather than simple coordinate selectors to correctly represent multi-section part geometries across different orientations.
Designed RFID login as a first-class auth path, not a bolt-on — session handling, access tiers, and inactivity timeouts were all built with operator-floor usage patterns in mind.
Results
Deployed a production-floor HMI with secure RFID login, shift start/end logging, and live zone-to-PLC synchronization — replacing fully manual PLC configuration.
Eliminated recipe inconsistency by replacing ad-hoc PLC edits with a validated, auditable recipe workflow that persists and restores across sessions.
Created a complete audit trail for zone selections, recipe changes, and production events — enabling traceability and post-production analysis for the first time.