INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION AND CONTROL

The goal of automating is to command actuators ( motors, valves, jacks ) in machines or production shops, in function of a desired state and in function of the evolution of the system by using control techniques like PID control or some advanced control techniques using at least one feedback signal.

At a higher level, automating refers to controlling how the production operates in an economical and efficient manner, taking in account the needs of the production management. Tools like S88 and S95 help to do it.

This folder is a non technical point of view on the today control engineering techniques.

It lists and introduces to all the available control techniques, and describes the state of the current research and what are the future trends.

• First, the authors introduce to the various available process models such as the mechanistic models, the black box models, the qualitative and the statistical models.
• Second, they present the model based controls : the so popular PID control, the predictive control, the constraint control, the multi-variable and the robust control.
• Third, they introduce the statistical process control ( SPC ) and how it can be implemented ( conventional SPC, algorithmic SPC and active SPC ).
• Fourth, they present how to optimize a process and how to supervise a process using artificial intelligence ( AI ) techniques.
• Finally, they list a very detailed bibliography about process controlling.

Mark J. WILLIS and Ming T. THAM

( Newcastle university )

S88 and S95 are standard methods intended to manage and to control batch processes and the production in general.

Consultant, specialist and expert in industrial execution systems, Jean VIEILLE is a member of ISA.

He acts as specialist and expert in manufacturing for control systems integration ( SP95 ) and for batch control ( SP88 ), and other manufacturing methods ( « 6 sigma and more » ).

Jean VIEILLE publishes articles and conferences supports covering industrial information systems, particularly SP88 and SP95 standards. ( The proposed file formats are generally both .ppt and .doc ).

More than S88 and S95, a wide range of subjects in industrial and manufacturing process are available : the performances in industry, the manufacturing architecture models, the MES - Manufacturing Execution Systems and the B2M - Business to Machine, the reporting and more.

Last but not least, you will find some notes about manufacturing news and about trends in the technology, and some links to manufacturing management.

www.syntropicfactory.com

• B2ML / BatchML : Schemes and documentation to download.

  B2ML is an XML implementation of the S95 standard, while BatchML is an XML implementation of the S88 standard, designed to make easier the data exchanges.

[ Archives ]

• Introduction to the S88 standard.
• Introduction to the S95 standard.

www.batchcontrol.com

• Enterprise - Control System Integration Part 1 : Models and Terminology. ( )

  ISA - www.mel.nist.gov

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• Guidelines for Packaging Machinery Automation. ( )

  www.infoplc.net

  The OMAC association provides this guide, presenting the PackML ( S88 standard compatible for machinery ) and the PackAL ( for applications ) languages.

  The work teams who have written this document have searched to define the rules of art, taking in account the know-how of the automation engineers specialized in this domain, elaborating a good synthesis, and adding their own proposals.

  The editor intends this manual for all users, manufacturers and providers of packing machines, packing systems or packing lines.

Proview is an open source process control software package. This professional, complete, economical and free control system is intended especially to factory automation and to process control.

It allows to develop and to run standalone or embedded logic controller ( PLC ) applications, operator interfaces ( HMI ) applications, supervisory process control ( SCADA ) applications and real time data base applications, on any PC based computer.

Automation applications run in operating system like Linux, or in any other open source operating system, over different hardware platforms : Intel, ARM, power PC, « Raspberry PI » or Arduino for instance.

Control.com is a « senior » and dynamic forum, initiated by the Modicon company.

There, you can talk about automated applications, automation, communication, designing, languages, motion, control, news, PLCs, process control, sensors, software, industrial networking and business.

You will also find topics such as resources, documentation, embedded programmable logic controllers, Linux PLCs or Open Control and more ( look at the « Topics » menu ).

www.control.com.

You will discuss there about automated applications in general, communications, operator interfaces, AC drives, stepper and servo applications, testing.

https://forum.automationdirect.com/.

Here, you only will discuss about PLCs.

You will find a lot of trade marks : Allen Bradley, Omron, Mitsubishi, Modicon, Siemens and more.

https://forums.mrplc.com.

See engineering tips, which serves an automation forum too. More, it serves other forums talking about industrial areas such as engineering methods, manufacturing, electricity, electronics, chemical, automotive, aeronautics and more.

This automation engineer presents here a large folder dedicated to the most used connections and cables need to interface data.

The author describes the connectors and explains the basic knowledge to get for each interface, with many illustrations.

First, he presents the different types of cables and interfaces, such as RS232 cables ( pin assignment, DB9, DB25, null modem and more ), modular cables ( especially the RJ45 connector ), parallel cables ( printer style ) and PLC cables ( Unitronics, Omron, Siemens and more others ).

In the general interfacing section, Lammert BIES details the specifications and the protocol of some standard interfaces ( serial RS232 and RS 485, USB interfaces for instance ).

Then he explains how to compute the cyclic redundancy check ( CRC ) value for a set of data, with an online calculator and a presentation of the different savours of the CRC ( CRC 16, CRC 32 and more ).

Finally, he remembers the ASCII table.

Other sections describe the UART interface ( universal asynchronous receiver transmitter interface ), the RS 232 standard and the RS232 flow control with the handshaking process, all USB connectors, how does an USB / RS 232 converter work, the USB cable length.

In the software section, this engineer provides a library of functions to compute the CRC.

Lammert BIES, professional in automation and control.

www.lammertbies.nl.

You can also read informations about software offering control capabilities such as Scilab, or about signal processing software like Mustig.

You can get informations about some Ethernet utility software or about some security utilities too.