Industrial automation is the trend that automatic control and automatic adjustment devices are widely used in industrial production to replace manual control of machines and machine systems for processing and production. Under the condition of industrial production automation, people only indirectly take care of and supervise the production of machines. Industrial automation, according to its development stage can be divided into :(1) semi-automation. That is, part of the use of automatic control and automatic devices, and the other part is manually operated machines for production. (2) full automation. Refers to the production process in all the procedures, including loading, unloading, loading and unloading, do not need people to direct production operations (people only indirectly watch and supervise the operation of the machine), but by the machine continuously and repeatedly automatically produce a product or a batch of products.
Industrial automation is a general term for the realization of information processing and process control, such as measurement and manipulation, according to the expected objectives, in the case of machine equipment or production process without direct manual intervention. Automation technology is to explore and study the methods and techniques to realize automation process. It is a comprehensive technology involving mechanical, microelectronic, computer, machine vision and other technical fields. The industrial revolution was the midwife of automation. It was precisely because of the needs of the industrial revolution that automation technology burst its shell and flourished. At the same time, automation technology also promotes the progress of industry. Nowadays, automation technology has been widely used in machinery manufacturing, electricity, construction, transportation, information technology and other fields, and has become the main means to improve labor productivity.
Industrial automation is one of the important prerequisites for Germany to launch industry 4.0, mainly in the fields of mechanical manufacturing and electrical engineering. At present, "embedded system", which is widely used in German and international manufacturing industry, is to embed mechanical or electrical components completely into the controlled device. It is a special computer system designed for specific applications. The market value of such "embedded systems" is €20bn a year, according to the data, and this figure is set to rise to €40bn by 2020.
Introduction to the
Industrial automation technology is a kind of control theory, instruments and meters, computer and other information technology, realize detection, control and optimize the process of industrial production, scheduling, management and decision-making, to increase production, improve quality, reduce costs, ensure safety of comprehensive high technology, including industrial automation software, hardware and system three parts. As one of the most important technologies in modern manufacturing field in the 20th century, industrial automation technology mainly solves the problems of production efficiency and consistency. Both high speed mass manufacturing enterprises and enterprises pursuing flexibility, flexibility and customization must rely on the application of automation technology. Automation system itself does not directly create benefits, but it plays a significant role in improving the production process of enterprises:
(1) improve the safety of the production process;
(2) improve production efficiency;
(3) improve product quality;
(4) reduce the consumption of raw materials and energy in the production process.
According to the statistics of international authoritative consulting institutions, the output ratio of the input of automation system and the improvement of enterprise benefits is about 1:4 to 1:6. Especially in capital-intensive enterprises, automation system accounts for less than 10% of the total investment in equipment, playing the role of "four or two thousand funds". Traditional industrial automation system is electromechanical integration system is mainly for equipment and production process control, namely by the mechanical noumenon, power parts, testing sensor, actuator, driving part, control and signal processing unit, interface elements such as hardware, the software program flow of information and electronic circuit logic is the purpose of guidance, coordination and integration, organic fusion, form orderly rules of movement of matter and energy, thus constituting industrial automation system or product.
In the field of industrial automation, the traditional control system has experienced the development course of following the ground-based pneumatic instrument control system, the electric unit combined analog instrument control system, the centralized digital control system and the distributed control system DCS.
With the development of control technology, computer, communication, network and other technologies, the field of information interaction and communication is rapidly covering all levels from the field equipment layer of the factory to the control and management. Industrial control system generally refers to the industrial production process and its mechanical and electrical equipment, process equipment for measurement and control of automatic technical tools (including automatic measuring instruments, control devices). Today, the simplest understanding of automation has also been transformed into the use of machines (including computers) in a broad sense to partially or completely replace or surpass human physical forces.
The development history
The first stage
Industrial automation
Industrial automation
1940s -- early 1960s
Demand driving force: market competition, resource utilization, reduce labor intensity, improve product quality, meet the needs of mass production. Main features: this stage is mainly for the single machine automation stage, the main features are: a variety of single machine automation processing equipment appeared, and continue to expand the application and development to the direction of depth. Typical results and products: hardware CNC system of CNC machine tools.
The second stage
Mid-1960s -- early 1970s
Demand driving force: the market competition intensifies, the request product updates quickly, the product quality is high, and ADAPTS the large and medium-sized batch production need and reduces the labor intensity. Main features: this stage is mainly marked by automatic production line, its main features are: on the basis of the single machine automation, a variety of modular machine tool, combined production line, at the same time, the software of CNC system and used for machine tool, CAD, CAM software such as start used in actual engineering design and manufacture, this stage hardware processing equipment for Yu Dazhong batch production and processing. Typical results and products: automatic production line for drilling, boring, milling, etc.
The third stage
Mid-1970s -- present
Industrial automation
Industrial automation
Demand driving force: the change of market environment makes the general problem in multi-variety and small and medium-sized batch production more and more serious, requiring the development of automation technology to its breadth and depth, make its related technologies highly integrated, play the overall best efficiency. Main features: since the concept of CIM was first proposed by American scholars in the early 1970s, great changes have taken place in the field of automation. CIM is also a corresponding technology to achieve integration, integrating decentralized and independent unit automation technology into an optimized whole. The so-called philosophy is that enterprises should analyze and overcome the existing "bottleneck" according to the needs, so as to realize the ideological strategy of constantly improving the strength and competitiveness. As the corresponding technology to achieve integration, it is generally considered as: data acquisition, distribution, sharing; Network and communications; Workshop floor equipment controller; Computer hardware and software specifications, standards, etc. At the same time, as a business philosophy and working mode, concurrent engineering has been applied and active in the field of automation technology since the late 1980s, and will further promote the integration of unit automation technology. Typical results and products: CIMS factory, flexible manufacturing system (FMS).
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