Roboflow + Allen-Bradley PLCs
Read and write ControlLogix, CompactLogix and Micro800 tags over EtherNet/IP, so a detection can reject a part, hold a station or count output.
How to connect Allen-Bradley PLCs to Roboflow
5 stepsSet up an edge device
Register a device in Deployment Manager and connect it to the same network as the PLC, with port 44818 reachable. The device runs your Workflows on site.
Add the PLC Relay
On the device's Configuration tab, add the PLC Relay service, choose Allen-Bradley (EtherNet/IP) and enter the PLC address, followed by the slot if needed (for example 192.168.1.100/0).
Define your tags
Add each tag by its exact name in the PLC program (names are case-sensitive), pick BOOL, INT, DINT or REAL, and mark the tags the Workflow may write. Simulation mode lets you test without hardware.
Add PLC blocks to the Workflow
Add a PLC Reader to bring tag values in and a PLC Writer to send results out, pointed at the relay. To skip the relay, set Connection mode to Direct (EtherNet/IP) and enter the PLC's IP address and processor slot.
Deploy and monitor
Deploy the Workflow to a stream on the device. The device page shows the relay's connection state and live tag values, and a PLC Disconnected alert tells you if the link drops.
What teams build with Allen-Bradley PLCs
Reject a defective part
Write a reject tag when the Workflow finds a defect, and let the PLC fire the reject mechanism at the right moment.
Inspect only when a part is there
Read a part-present tag and run the inspection only when the PLC says a part is in front of the camera.
Count output per shift
Write running counts of good and rejected parts to DINT tags the PLC and HMI already display.
Works with
| Product | How Roboflow connects |
|---|---|
| ControlLogix | Direct or PLC Relay |
| CompactLogix | Direct or PLC Relay |
| Micro800 | PLC Relay |
| FactoryTalk View and Optix | Via the PLC tags |
Questions
No. The PLC blocks speak EtherNet/IP to the controller themselves, either directly or through PLC Relay running on your edge device.
Yes. The PLC Reader block brings tag values such as a part-present bit or a SKU number into the Workflow, where they can gate or label each inspection.
No. The PLC blocks run on your own device on the plant network, close to the camera and the controller, not on Roboflow's hosted API.
The PLC blocks and PLC Relay are part of the Enterprise plan. Talk to our team to add them to your workspace.
PLC Relay also speaks Siemens S7 (S7-300, S7-400, S7-1200 and S7-1500) and Modbus TCP, so the same Workflow setup works on mixed lines.
Why are companies choosing Roboflow?
The end-to-end platform for vision AI: create datasets, train models and deploy to production.
Flexible deployment modes
Move from a scalable cloud API to edge hardware like NVIDIA Jetson without managing complex dependencies.
Integrated workflow builder
Combine multiple AI models, custom business logic and third-party integrations into one production-ready pipeline in a low-code editor.
Model monitoring and alerts
Dashboards track confidence, inference time and request volume for your deployed models, and email alerts tell your team when confidence suddenly drops.
