Guide
At the Shanghai Trade Fair, a foreign engineer gave a good assessment of the level of industrial robot development in China, with special mention of Xinsong robots and Li Qun automation. Let’s talk about automation, do you know what are the hottest technologies for industrial automation? The inventory is taken below.
1 Instrument intelligence
In the control system, instrumentation as its constituent elements, its technological progress is developed with the development of control system technology. At present, the control theory has developed to a new stage of intelligent control, the intelligence of automated instrumentation becomes inevitable.
The intelligence of instrumentation is mainly due to the development and application of microprocessor and artificial intelligence technology.
- For example, the use of neural networks, genetic algorithms, evolutionary calculations, chaotic control and other intelligent technologies, so that instrumentation to achieve high-speed, efficient, multi-functional, high mobility and flexibility and other performance.
- For example, the fuzzy reasoning technique of fuzzy rules is used to make various kinds of fuzzy decisions about the fuzzy relationship sonofly relationships of things.
- For example, using software to realize signal filtering, such as fast Fourier transformation, short-term Fourier transformation, wavelet transformation and other technologies, is to simplify the hardware, improve the signal-to-noise ratio, improve the dynamic characteristics of the sensor an effective way.
- For example, make full use of artificial neural network technology of strong self-learning, adaptive, self-organizing ability, association, memory function and nonlinear complex relationship input, output between the black box mapping characteristics.
At present, China’s intelligent field is the weakest, the most need to develop is instruments, instrumentation, sensors and other basic industries. With the rapid development of science and technology and the continuous improvement of automation, China’s instrumentation industry will also undergo new changes and new development. The high-tech of instrumentation products, especially intelligent, will become the mainstream of the development of instrumenttechnology and industry in the future.
Intelligent instrumentation based on the theoretical basis of intelligent control currently has roughly the following advances:
Expert controller
Expert control system (expertcontrol system, ECS) is a typical knowledge-based control system, it is a program system with a lot of expertise and experience. It uses artificial intelligence and computer technology to make reasoning and judgmentbased based on the knowledge and experience provided by one or more experts in a field, to simulate the decision-making process of human experts, and to solve complex problems that need to be solved by human experts.
Fuzzy Controller
The Fuzzy Controller, also known as the Fuzzy Logic Controller. Because fuzzy control technology has the ability to deal with uncertainty, inaccuracy and fuzzy information, the charge process which cannot build mathematical model can be effectively controlled, and some problems that can not be solved by conventional control methods, so fuzzy control has been widely used in the field of industrial control.
Neural network controller
The application of neural network in industrial control system improves the information processing ability of the system and the intelligence level of the system. Neural network control, referred to as neural control, refers to the use of neural network as a technique to model complex nonlinear objects, or act as controllers, or optimize calculations, or to reason, or troubleshooting and other work.
It should be noted that: in the field of intelligent instrumentation, whether it is neuron network, fuzzy control or chaotic control, although many articles published by Chinese scholars, but strict and detailed and independent innovation of the work and results are not many. Some high-end instrumentation still need to be imported abroad.
2 Networking of control systems
The control system in the 21st century will be the system of combining network and control. The research on networked control system (NCS) has become one of the leading topics in the field of automation. With the communication network as a system link embedded control system, which greatly enriches the industrial control technology and means, so that the automation system and industrial control system in the architecture, control methods and human-machine cooperation methods have undergone great changes, at the same time also brought some new problems, such as control and communication coupling, time delay, information scheduling methods, distributed control methods and fault rash.
The emergence of these new problems makes the control methods and algorithms of automatic control theory need to innovate continuously in the network environment. With the development of computer technology, communication technology and network technology.
The traditional control field is undergoing an unprecedented change and is beginning to develop towards network. The structure of the control system has evolved from the original CCS (computer centralized control system) to the second generation of DCS (dispersed control system) to the current popular FCS (field bus control system). The demand for big data such as images and voice signals, and high-speed transmission, has given birth to the combination of industrial Ethernet and control networks.
This wave of industrial control system networking will be such as embedded technology, multi-standard industrial control network interconnection, wireless technology and other popular technologies into the integration, thus expanding the field of industrial control development space, bringing new development opportunities.
Industrialization driven by information technology is not only a strong guarantee to maintain the sustained and rapid development of the national economy, but also an important means of the transformation of traditional industrial architecture. As the representative of information technology, the combination of network technology and industrial control system will greatly improve the level of control system, change the relatively closed enterprise information management structure of the existing industrial control system, and adapt to the needs of modern enterprise siphonary management. Network technology has promoted the transformation of the structure of traditional industrial control system.
The fieldbus, Ethernet, multi-industrial control network interconnection, embedded technology and wireless communication technology are integrated into the industrial control network, which, while ensuring the original stability and real-time ness of the control system, enhances the openness and interoperability of the system, and improves the adaptability of the system to different environments. In today’s economic globalization, the network of this industrial control system and its composition model enable enterprises to adapt to unprecedented fierce market competition, help to speed up the development of new products, reduce production costs, improve information services, with broad prospects for development.
3 Wirelessing industrial communications
The wirelessization of industrial communications is also a hot topic in the field of automation. Industrial control enterprises have come to realize that wireless technology will be the basis for the next technology take-off, will be able to greatly improve plant efficiency and ensure user safety.
With the increasing popularity of wireless technology, vendors are offering a range of hardware and software technologies to help add communication capabilities to their products. These technical support communication standards include Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS (Global Positioning System), 5G, and WiMax (Global Microwave Access Interoperability). However, when adding wireless connectivity, the choice of chips and related software (assuming that the implementation chosen works properly and meets the relevant argumentation requirements) can be challenging. Even if a viable design is made, it may not be successful on the market without optimizing performance, power, cost, and scale. The hottest thing today is not necessarily the best communication standard and what customers need, so the hardware and software implementation option sits this way: every new generation of products doesn’t have to adapt completely from scratch.
The trend of wireless technology entering the industrial field is unquestionable, especially in the case of cable can not be used, but also appears that wireless has the advantage. But this requires the performance of wireless technology itself to improve, reliability, certainty of communication and real-time, compatibility and other performance needs to be strengthened. Therefore, in the near future, industrial wireless technology will continue to be an extension of traditional wired technology, most instruments and automation products will be embedded in the wireless transmission function. International research on wireless technology is still in its infancy, the relevant standards are also being formulated, and China’s scientific research institutions are also involved, which to a certain extent promotes the development of wireless technology in China’s process industry.
Because wireless technology is still in the stage of research and development and continuous improvement, the function is limited after all. And in the field of automation technology, there is no recognized and proven application of reliable wireless technology standards in real-time control, especially in the case of short work cycle times. Therefore, the current application of wireless technology can only be limited to data acquisition and monitoring (SCADA).
But with increased reliability, wireless technology will be used in a wider range of applications. Wireless communications will grow rapidly over the next few years, but wireless will not replace wired communications. Wired is stable, reliable, and secure, and wireless is only an alternative to wired solutions where wired is inconvenient or expensive. If wireless and wired are combined organically, both sides will leverage their respective strengths and offer new solutions for increasing productivity. The use of wired communications in suitable places, wireless communications in suitable areas, because both wired and wireless communications support TCP/IP protocol, the two modes of communication can be organic combination, play their respective strengths, and can improve productivity.
4 Internet of Things and Automation
Today, the Internet of Things is one of the most media appearances and closely linked to “intelligence”. From the “management, control, intelligence” point of view, in fact, the Internet of Things and industrial automation is the same line, industrial automation includes collection, transmission, computing and other links, and the Internet of Things is a comprehensive perception, reliable transmission, intelligent processing, the two are connected.
The Internet of Things is just more focused on wireless, massive interviews, and intelligent computing. The Internet of Things is closely linked to automation technologies. The difference is that “traditional automated networks are mostly implemented through wired networks with a narrow network connection, while wireless networks are the primary transmission path in sensing networks, and the range of connections is wider.” “In a natural way, industrial automation manufacturers are keen to focus on the development of the Internet of Things is a natural thing to do.
Applications for the Internet of Things, such as:
- Logistics, supply chain, warehousing management system;
- Industrial products production, tracking, progress supervision, quality tracking, etc.
- Regulatory, tracking and anti-counterfeiting applications for precious commodities and dangerous goods;
- Electronic tickets for large-scale meetings, high-level meetings and major meetings, electronic tickets for large-scale events, concerts, scenic spots, etc. (e.g., Shanghai World Expo);
- traffic charges, long-distance automatic identification and management of various types of vehicles;
- The people in the area automatically identify, record, locate and query;
- The whole process of the animal and food industry chain is traced;
- Agriculture, disaster relief and emergency relief and other fields;
- Valuable assets and important assets;
- The full process of brand clothing;
- The field of books;
- Military firearms management, personnel management, vehicle management, material management, security and confidentiality and other fields;
- In aviation, automotive and other fields;
- Retail;
- In the field of social security;
- Smart city areas, etc.
The “Internet of Things” subverts the traditional thinking that physical and IT infrastructure was completely separated before humans, effectively linking physical facilities such as roads and buildings with personal computers, mobile phones, home appliances, transportation facilities, and IT facilities, enabling government management, manufacturing, social management, and the full interconnectedness of people’s personal lives.
From the perspective of the industrial chain needed by the Internet of Things, the automatic control, information sensing and radio frequency identification required by the Internet of Things belong to its upstream technology and industry, while downstream is the application of the Internet of Things. Some industry experts even think: “Traditional industrial automation is actually part of the Internet of Things.” “Call on industrial automation manufacturers to become the real pusher for the Internet of Things. As a combination of information and automation, the Internet of Things has the potential and advantages of infinite amplification, and some units are acutely aware of the potential of the Internet of Things in managing process estoctic processes and production process optimization, and have achieved initial results. Traditional automated networks are very similar to sensing networks in the Internet of Things.
5 Cloud Computing and Automation
Cloud computing is the development of distributed processing, parallel processing, and grid computing, or the commercial implementation of these computer science concepts. Its core is the storage and computing of massive data, with special emphasis on the application of virtualization technology. In short, cloud computing is an Internet-based supercomputing model that connects huge resources to provide users with a variety of IT services.
For example, the cloud computing model will bring about a huge change in the automation software industry in the future. The main ones are:
(1) The architecture of the automation system will be more flexible, and the distributed architecture will be extended to a wider scope
In modern large-scale industrial automation and information technology projects, the system has become increasingly large and complex, the existing network and system architecture has been unable to meet these challenges. The revolutionary concept of cloud computing has completely broken the rigid architecture of the automation system. In the system of cloud computing, the automation and information system is not simply running on a fixed computer, but on the entire network, including the Internet, based on the entire network to allocate the system’s resources and implement various functions.
(2) The analysis and processing of massive information will become the general function of automation software
In modern large-scale automation projects, the amount of automated information data is growing, with the “massive” description is not too much. Therefore, the current automation software used in the database type, data storage mode and data reading, query mode, the technology is currently around the accurate and timely processing of large amounts of data. The processing of massive information has become one of the bottlenecks restricting the development of automation software.
In the era of cloud computing, users can play different hardware platforms and network computing capabilities at different levels, and can easily utilize the services (SaaS), platform (PaaS) and computing hardware and network resources (IaaS), fully integrate the computing capabilities of public networks, make the analysis and processing of large quantities of automation and information technology become reality, meet the needs of large-scale application systems, but also realize the control of complex automated information systems.
(3) Completely change the engineering development mode
In the era of cloud computing, the development of engineering projects will no longer be confined to a single computer, SaaS model enables users to directly use the software on the automated software vendor server to develop through the Internet, the development process in the cloud computing network, after the completion of the development, the generation of directly operational engineering projects can be generated.
(4) Transform the service model of software vendors and reduce maintenance costs
The cloud computing model will also reduce the cost of services for software vendors. In the past, software vendors needed to support and maintain automation software running in a variety of hardware and software environments, whereas in the era of cloud computing, they only needed to maintain a set of software on their servers.
(5) Reduce the hardware requirements of automation systems and enhance the status of the software industry
Whether it is a private cloud based on an enterprise network, or a hybrid cloud with a certain connection to the outside network, with the goal of dynamic distribution system computing power, the system’s computing can be more smooth and stable, so as to greatly reduce the requirements of the enterprise hardware system without reducing the operating efficiency. As we all know, in today’s automation system, software is in the “soul” position, but the value is relatively low, only 5%-10%. In the era of cloud computing, the system requirements for hardware are reduced, and the requirements of software are higher and higher, so the value and importance of software in the automation industry will be greatly increased.
6New technology and new product concepts will be at the heart of the competition
There is no doubt that the cloud computing model will bring about a huge change in the automation software industry in the future. How to grasp the trend of IT development? How to develop a new generation of automation software based on cloud computing? How do I compatible old versions of automation software with cloud computing platforms? How do I upgrade a traditional automated engineering system to a cloud computing system? will be a top priority for companies in the industry. I believe that with the increasing maturity of cloud computing technology and the efforts of the automation community, the development of automation systems using “cloud computing” in China will change with each passing day. This is also the Chinese automation industry should pay attention to the problem.
6 Automation of the low-carbon economy
Low-carbon economy automation is a broad and important subject. Let’s take the process industry as an example. Process industry refers to the petrochemical, oil refining, chemical, metallurgy, pharmaceutical, building materials, light industry, papermaking, mining, environmental protection, electricity and other industries that occupy an important economic position in china’s national economy, and the annual output value of China’s process industrial enterprises accounts for 66% of the total annual output value of the national industrial enterprises.
The development of process industry has a direct impact on the country’s economic base. Process industry is a very large industry, occupies an important position in the industry, is an extremely important pillar industry in the development of the national economy, is an important part of the manufacturing industry. Its characteristics are to deal with continuous or intermittent material flow, energy flow-based, products in large quantities of production.
The production and processing methods of the process industry are mainly chemical reaction, separation, mixing and so on. In the 21st century of knowledge economy, process industry as a traditional industry will still be an important pillar industry of economic development. Process industry is not only the source of energy, all kinds of raw materials, but also the main consumer of energy, energy conservation and emission reduction is very important. These industries are characterized by high energy consumption, serious pollution, poor product quality, backward production process, low level of automation, low management level, low level of information integration, weak overall competitiveness and other shortcomings.
Industry is the largest body of China’s economy, and it is also the most important industry that consumes energy and resources and produces environmental pollution. Process industry has borne the brunt of the main target, especially in petroleum processing, chemicals, steel, electricity, non-ferrous, building materials and other six industries, its energy consumption accounted for nearly 70% of the country’s industrial energy consumption.
For enterprises should consider the strategy of enterprise development, consider how to develop a “low-carbon strategy”, and strive to keep pace with the country’s sustainable development trend growth. Internationally renowned management guru Peter? Durack famously said: “No one can change, only walk before change”! China’s process industry should also do the same, and strive to walk ahead of change! Low-carbon emission reduction is the national action, low-carbon emission reduction is the mission of history, low-carbon emission reduction is the obligation of process industrial enterprises. “Low carbon” is also a major mission of the process enterprise.
7 Safety production automation
Production automation is a frequent “vocabulary” in recent years. This is due to the increasing demand for safe production due to the increasing use of automation technology due to the constant occurrence of various safety production accidents. How to make efficient use of high-tech such as automation and information technology to improve the level of safe production has become an urgent task. Therefore, the country put forward the “science and technology to promote security” strategy! The development of safety is also inseparable from automation. The safety of manufacturing can be divided into mechanical safety and process safety.
Mechanical safety is mainly guaranteed by the person, has been highly valued, safety switches, safety buttons, safety doors, safety carpethas have become the darling of the factory, accompanied by safety sensors, safety PLC, safety bus, safety Ethernet and other products. Process safety is to ensure the safety of the production process. Today, many automation vendors are considering the availability of security solutions that are not just about providing one or more security products, but about improving the security of their devices. How to embed safety functions into the user’s machinery and equipment, without affecting the production process to improve safety and security, but also need to have better development.
Automation is the process by which a machine or device operates or controls automatically in accordance with a prescribed procedure or instruction without any human intervention. The use of automation technology can not only free people from heavy physical labor, part of mental labor and bad and dangerous working environment, but also expand human organ function, greatly improve labor productivity, enhance human understanding of the world and transform the world. Therefore, machinery, equipment, systems or processes (production, management process), in the direct participation of no one or less people, in accordance with the requirements of the people, through automatic detection, information processing, analysis and judgment, manipulation control, to achieve the desired goal.
Safety automation is the use of automation technology to implement the “science and technology” strategy, to achieve safe production. Safety automation is specific to the combination of all walks of life has their own different content, such as: coal mine safety production automation, petrochemical safety production automation, chemical safety production automation, metallurgical safety production automation, traffic safety production automation, intelligent building safety production automation, other industries, such as safety production automation.
8 Saving and cost reduction automation
In recent years, “energy saving and consumption reduction” has become one of the words of great concern in the development of automation technology in China. “Energy conservation and emission reduction, scientific development” has become the strategic guiding ideology of China’s economic development.
It is estimated that China consumes 4.3 times as much energy for every dollar of GDP created in the United States and 11.5 times that of Japan. It can be seen that in China’s enterprise product costs, the cost of energy consumption is relatively large, but also shows that China’s enterprise energy-saving space is very large, can be completely through energy saving to increase the competitiveness of products.
Equipment manufacturing industry as the carrier of technology and transformation of the media, is the “means” of the basic industry, its products are all walks of life production equipment, is the basis of the foundation, its characteristics are: a wide range, many categories, high technical content, and other industries with a large degree of relevance. After many years of development, China’s equipment manufacturing industry has formed a complete category, large scale, with a certain level of technology of the industrial system, is an important pillar of the national economy industry. Saving energy and improving energy efficiency are not only the long-term plan to ensure the normal production and operation of enterprises and realize the healthy and sustainable development of enterprises, but also the inevitable choice for enterprises to meet the needs of the market, reduce costs, increase efficiency, improve the environment and improve the competitiveness of enterprises. Enterprises to achieve rapid development, the implementation of energy conservation and consumption reduction is imperative.
With the development of the times, the task of energy conservation and emission reduction will be more difficult, the control indicators are increasingly demanding, these indicators will be put forward to put forward higher requirements for industrial operation. Actively adopt ingesting advanced energy-saving technology, realize scientific management concept, mode and process is an important way for enterprises to save energy and reduce consumption, and the promotion and application of new technologies, new processes, new materials and new methods based on technological innovation can gradually eliminate the application of inefficient equipment and high energy-consuming product groups in enterprise production, which has an important role in promoting energy saving and consumption reduction. To promote energy conservation and consumption reduction with high-tech innovation is a step that equipment manufacturing industry must take. This is because modern high-tech profound and widely affect the development of equipment manufacturing industry. The development of modern high-tech has put forward higher, newer and better requirements for the development of equipment manufacturing industry. In the equipment manufacturing industry”, “energy saving and consumption reduction” also runs through the high-tech support.
For example, motor energy saving, process optimization, waste into treasure, waste utilization, enterprise transformation, new energy utilization and other closely related to the use of automation technology.
9 Development of industrial software
The development of industrial control software is also an important aspect of the development of automation technology. Since the 1990s, IBM has acquired a series of middleware vendors, making middleware at the heart of the enterprise IT architecture and raising awareness of the importance and centrality of software. Since then, IBM has acquired a number of well-known software companies, such as Lotus, DB2. Software began to go hand in hand with hardware, and in 2004 IBM further sold the PC business to Lenovo, this event shows that the glory days of hardware have become history, the era of software has come to the climax.
In the field of industrial control, hardware software is a development trend. Such as the emergence of embedded soft PLC, etc. At present, the latest version of CoDeSys V3.4 software (based on embedded system soft PLC under coDeSys platform) is the latest version of CoDeSys V3.4 software (based on the German 3S software company. Advocate the concept of “open, reconfigurable automation” with the aim of “reusable”. The software is based on the development environment of IEC61131 and supports several languages such as trapezoids, flow charts, structural diagrams, advanced ST languages, and other automatic control of industrial standards.
Software reuse is a method and theory of computer software engineering, the essence of which is a solution to avoid duplication of labor in software development. Software reuse is an effective way to improve software development productivity and software product quality. Software reuse is the use of existing software and its active components to construct new software or systems to reduce software development time and maintenance costs. Software reuse is an important technology to improve software productivity and quality.
The key factors (technical and non-technical factors) for software reuse include: software component technology, software architecture, domain engineering, software reengineering, open parts process, CASE (Computer Aided Software Engineering, Computer Aided Software Engineering) technology, and various non-technical factors.
The benefits of software reuse are:
- higher productivity (and the consequent cost reduction);
- Higher software quality (errors can be corrected faster);
- Proper use of software reuse can improve the maintainability of the system.
In addition to the benefits of software reuse, CoDeSys software also has the characteristics of reconfigurable manufacturing, which is a process that guides the management and control of the reconstruction of manufacturing systems. It enables manufacturing systems to respond effectively to changing environments. Refactorability refers to the ability of a system in which both the hardware module or (and) the software module can reconfigure (or reset) the system structure and algorithm according to the changing data flow or control flow. It has: organizational refactorability, business process reconfigurability, product reconfigurability, workshop processing system reconfigurability and reconfigurable information platform.
The most prominent advantage of reconfigurable systems is the ability to change their architecture according to different application needs to match the specific application requirements. In the face of the ever-changing market, how to make the manufacturing system respond quickly and economically to the changes in market demand is a great challenge to today’s manufacturing industry. Traditional mechanical automation production lines have the benefits of mass production, but in the face of market changes can not respond quickly, and flexible manufacturing systems can shorten the product trial and production cycle, but the investment is huge, the recovery cycle is long. Therefore, it is urgent to establish a new manufacturing model which not only has the benefits of scale production, but also adapts to the dynamic and changeable manufacturing environment quickly, and can make full use of the existing manufacturing resources. In this regard, the newly proposed reconfigurable manufacturing system is an effective way to adapt to this need.
In addition, Siemens recommended TIA Botou, is Siemens based on the TIA (fully integrated automation) concept launched an innovative engineering software platform – TIAPortal (Boto). It can manage all automation tasks in one engineering configuration environment, making the work of design engineers “simple”, more efficient, and more cost-effective. It is based on the realization of unified communications, unified programming and unified data, constitute a complete organic unity, thus meeting the industry for a fully integrated platform for the implementation of automation solutions, from product design to mechanical design to automation design all concentrated in one software. As a result, it is the most intuitive, efficient and reliable engineering software platform available. This is also the industrial control industry should be concerned.
10 Simulation Universalization
Networked modeling and simulation technology is a hot research topic in the world of modeling and simulation. At present, the technical connotation and application mode of network modeling and simulation are expanding and enriching with the development of network technology, and the rapid development of network technology and computing technology will lead us into the era of universal computing. Universal computing is the establishment of a computing and communication composition of the information space and people’s living physical space fusion, the formation of intelligent space.
In this intelligent space, people can access computing and information services transparently from anywhere, anytime. Net work modeling and simulation technology will develop in the direction of universalization. The combination of universal computing technology,” which integrates universal computing technology, realizes the combination of information space and physical space, and will push modern modeling simulation research, development and application into a new era.
For future complex, heterogeneous, dynamic universal computing environment, universal simulation system has the following basic characteristics:
(1) Popularization in general
Simulation resources are ubiquitous. With the help of grid technology, the simulation grid realizes the service of various software and hardware simulation resources in people’s life, shields the user from the complex and heterogeneous universal computing environment, makes the simulation resources everywhere, and solves the problem of “popularization”.
(2) Anytime, anywhere
People can get simulation services at work and in the live scene without having to sit in front of a dedicated computer. Grid technology makes the terminal of simulation application extend to every corner of the network, completely free from the constraints of time and space, people use any networking device, that is, can access the simulation resources and services in the grid environment, to meet the “anytime, anywhere” needs.
(3) Adaptive
The simulation information space can provide a consistent simulation service that the computing environment can adapt to change in a way that is suitable for the user.
(4) Transparent
Users do not need to take a lot of attention when obtaining simulation services, simulation services access is very natural or even the user’s own attention, that is, the so-called implication interaction.
If the idea and technology of universal computing are introduced into the simulation grid, it can meet the new demand of universal simulation environment for the simulation grid in mobility, adaptability, intelligence and application mode, so that the simulation information space can provide the simulation environment and coherent simulation service in a way that suits the user. The combination of grid technology and universal computing technology of universal simulation grid technology will become a new focus of network modeling simulation research application.
In summary, from the current ten popular automation technology trends can be seen automation innovation can be summed up in several words: integration, communication, collaboration, energy saving, safety, standards and openness. With the birth of many new products and concepts.
For many years, the new automation is the most direct force to promote the rapid development of manufacturing industry, and this force, will certainly carry the “innovation” of the source of power, in the era of intelligent manufacturing shine!
