Tag: Industrial automation
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Basic Features of Sercos Automation Bus
Sercos is a short form for serial real-time communication system; a digital automation bus that interconnects motion controls, drives, I/O, sensors, and auxiliary devices such as cameras and weighing stations. Sercos is an open controller-to-intelligent digital device interface, designed for high-speed serial communication of standardized closed loop data in real time (RT). Sercos I and…
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Power MOSFET Motor Control
Because of the very high input gate resistance of MOSFETs, MOSFET’s fast switching speeds, and the ease at which they can be driven makes them ideal to interface with op-amps or standard logic gates. Nevertheless, care must be taken to ensure that the gate-source input voltage is correctly chosen because when using the MOSFET as…
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What are PLC-Based Water Treatment Plants?
Most of the water treatment plants in the previous decade were manually operated. However, they were automated to a certain degree using relays or electrical control panels but the system was not reliable and required a lot of space. In this modern era, water treatment facilities are automatically operated using PLC or Programmable Logic Controllers…
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Basic Steps to Consider in Designing a Control System
Typically a control system should be designed to work together with an already existing process. The control design problem can be stated at local, supervisory or even plant-wide level. If we consider the local level, the typical steps in designing the control are: Most of these activities should be performed iteratively. For example, if the…
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Fuzzy Controller and its Industrial Applications
Fuzzy logic is a human model, potentially applicable to a wide range of processes and tasks that require human instinct and experience. In computer, truth-values are either 1 or 0, which corresponds to true/false duality. In fuzzy logic, truth is the matter of degree, hence truth-values ranges between 1 and 0 in a continuous manner.…
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Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition in Power Systems
The term supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) refers to the network of computer processors that provide control and monitoring of remote electrical or mechanical operation e.g. management of power distribution grid or the control of mechanical processes in a manufacturing plant. Typical the old SCADA systems would encompass computers and network links that manage…
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A Digitally Controlled Drill Press
The diagram below shows a digital control system for a drill press that includes: the input, digital processor, drill-positioning mechanisms, and sampled-data position control system. The process is controlled as follows: The processor receives the input data and determines the sequence of operations while storing both the sequence and the hole positions in the memory.…
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Features of Analog Signal Transmission
Analog voltage or current signals are hardwired between the transmitter and the receiver. These analog signals can be relatively be slow to settle compared to digital signals, due time constant of the lead capacitance, inductance and resistance. Analog signals can lose accuracy if the signal lines are long with high resistance. These signals can be…
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Advantages of Industrial Control Networks
Industrial networks have evolved to become an integral part of manufacturing replacing the point-to-point communication at all levels. At lower levels in the plant/factory setup, networks provide higher reliability, visibility and diagnosability and enable capabilities such as distributed control, diagnostics, safety and device interoperability. At higher levels networks can leverage internet services to enable factory-wide…
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Basic Elements of a Digital Controller for a Steam-Turbine Driven Generator
The block diagram below illustrates the basic elements of a minicomputer system for speed and voltage control as well as data acquisition of a steam-turbine driven generator unit. Typical output variables of the generator are speed, rotor angle, terminal voltage, field (excitation) current, armature current, and real & reactive power. A number of output variables…