Anish Vijay s

 In today’s modern industrial society companies must be competitive in the market place in order to survive.  Companies are continually trying to improve their productivity in order to be more competitive.  Automating many industrial processes and tasks can be an effective way of improving productivity.  Many industrial tasks and processes consist of operations that are repeated over and over again.  These type of tasks can usually be carried out very effectively by automatic machines.  Computers are ideal for controlling these automatic machines

 Automation is the use of control systems and information technologies to reduce the need for human work in the production of goods and services.  In simple words it is a system where a user provides the input, the machine or computer carries out the process and provides you with output.  Automation is a step beyond mechanisation.  The term automation, inspired by the earlier word automatic (coming from automaton), was not widely used before 1947, when General Motors established the automation department.

 Car Manufacture  Coke Production  Automated Milk System  Aircraft Manufacture  Spray Tanning  Everyday Life?  Washing Machine  Video Recorder  Dishwasher  Microwave

Speed  Tasks are carried out more quickly. (e.g. more items can be manufactured each day, repairs can be carried out more quickly) Hazardous (Dangerous) environment  Automated system can be designed to perform tasks in places where it is extremely dangerous for people to work. (e.g. nuclear reactors, in chemical factories, on North Sea oil platforms) Repetitive tasks  Humans get bored when carrying out the same task time after time. Automated systems are able to carry out the same task over and over again without making mistakes or slowing down

Accuracy  Automated systems can produce exactly the same high quality product in a factory time after time.  They follow precisely the instructions in the programs which control them. This guarantees 100% accuracy.  E.g. An automated system designed to cut metal parts for an aero plane will produce the parts with absolute precision. It is capable of error only if the programmer has made a mistake when entering the instructions or if a mechanical fault develops. Efficiency  Automated systems are very efficient because they are very accurate, they do not make mistakes and they waste no time or materials.  E.g. Every part produced by an automated system for an aero plane will be the exact size and shape, there will be no parts thrown away because there are mistakes, there will be no time lost mending errors or replacing parts.

Adaptability  Automated systems can be designed to be flexible and handle a range of different tasks.  A robot arm can be programmed to spray a car one week, the following week it could be programmed to lift equipment onto a conveyor belt.  Other automated systems are adaptable because they are equipped with a range of sensors to help them detect the need to change their output.  An automated system regulating pressures in a petrochemical plant has sensors which feed it data about gas escapes and rises and drops in pressure.

Depending on the exact function, one of several different tools may be responsible for an automated system:  An Autonomous Guided Vehicle  An artificial neural network,  Distributed control system,  Human machine interface,  Supervisory control and data acquisition,  A programmable logic controller.  PAC - Programmable automation controller  Instrumentation  Motion control  Robotics

 An Autonomous Guided Vehicle is a vehicle that is programmed by a computer system to move about a factory floor delivering parts to work stations or removing waste.

 An artificial neural network is a mathematical or computational model whose rhythms mimic those of biological neurons.  The structure of the network is adaptive, meaning it can change based on the external or internal exchange of information throughout the network  Applications include spam filtering, system control (such as in a car), pattern recognition in systems (such as radars), pattern recognition in speech, movement, and text, and financial automated trading systems.

 A distributed control system is one in which there are separate controls throughout the system.  These kinds of systems are typically used in manufacturing processes, especially when the action or production is continuous.  The controllers can be specified for a given process, and monitor machine performance.  Traffic lights are usually controlled by distributed control systems.  They can also be applied in oil refining and central station power generation.

 A (SCADA) is a larger, industrial control network that is often comprised of smaller sub-systems, including human machine interface systems connected to remote terminal units,  They work to translate sensor signals into comprehensible data.  SCADA systems bear a high resemblance to distributed control systems.  The key difference lies in what they ultimately do—SCADA systems do not control each process in real time, rather they coordinate processes

 Commonly referred to as a user interface, a human machine interface system depends on human interaction with the system in order to function.  A user will provide input, and the system in turn will produce output that coincides with the user’s intent.  ATM

 Programmable logic controllers are real time systems, meaning there is a set deadline and timeframe in which the desired result must be achieved.  Programmable logic controllers can be used to program a variety of day-to-day applications, such as amusement park rides.

 A robot is a machine that is controlled by a computer and is flexible enough to be able to do a variety of tasks.  A jointed arm robot has a waist, shoulder, elbow and wrist. The ‘hand’ of the robot can be changed or modified to suit the task the robot is programmed to do.  These different ‘hands’ are called end effectors and they could be a gripper, suction cup, paint spray or a collar.

A robot arm has a number of joints like a human's: - waist, - shoulder, - elbow, - wrist, - end-effector.

 Stationary robots.  A robot arm has a number of joints like a human's. Eg. Robot arm  Mobile robots  A robot that moves (on wheels or tracks with a motor) is a mobile robot e.g. a robot buggy (vehicle) carrying parts around a warehouse, a bomb disposal robot.  Intelligent robot  A robot that has sensors on board and can make decisions/ adapt behaviour based on environment using artificial intelligence.

o AI is the study of how to make computers do things that – at the present time – people can do better.  EXPERT SYSTEMS – programs that mimic the decision-making and problem-solving thought processes of human experts.  ROBOTICS – machines that can move and relate to objects as humans can.

 Replacing human operators in tasks that involve hard physical or monotonous work.  Replacing humans in tasks done in dangerous environments (i.e. fire, space, volcanoes, nuclear facilities, underwater, etc.)  Performing tasks that are beyond human capabilities of size, weight, speed, endurance, etc.  Economy improvement: Automation may improve in economy of enterprises, society or most of humanity like Germany or Japan in the 20th Century.  Reduces operation time and work handling time significantly.  Frees up workers to take on other roles.  Provides higher level jobs in the development, deployment, maintenance and running of the automated processes.

 Security Threats/Vulnerability: An automated system may have a limited level of intelligence, and is therefore more susceptible to committing an error.  Unpredictable development costs: The research and development cost of automating a process may exceed the cost saved by the automation itself.  High initial cost: The automation of a new product or plant requires a huge initial investment in comparison with the unit cost of the product, although the cost of automation is spread among many products.

 Jobs losses  Reduces morale having robots  Need to retrain for other jobs  Work 24/7  Less injuries for workers  Improved working conditions  More social time

 Program machine to move slowly  Fit sensors and provide feedback  Cover moving parts  Cover the battery and processor  Safety guidelines in place

 High running costs  Higher initial cost  Cheaper in the long run  Larger output = more money  Repair costs  More accuracy = less waste  Expensive to replace  Less employee wages = larger profits  Redundancy costs

 Automated video surveillance  Automated highway systems  Automated manufacturing  Home automation  Industrial automation  Agent-assisted automation