Control Engineering

Link This | Email this | Blog This | Comments (0)

What do embedded systems have to do with control engineers?
October 15, 2007

Everything. I like to define embedded systems as including any computerized system that lacks a traditional keyboard/mouse/monitor human-machine interface. That covers a lot of ground, from the cellphone in your pocket to the automobile in your garage. It also includes the checkout counter at the grocery store and the automated teller machine (ATM) outside your bank.

All of these devices work more or less autonomously with minimal input from the user. Your automobile, for example, takes inputs from the throttle pedal and gearshift lever, and combines them with inputs from a variety of sensors most drivers never heard of, then figures out how to generate mechanical power via the engine and apply it via the drivetrain in the most efficient way. These embedded devices work because part of their architecture is an automated control system that finds out what you want to do, then figures out—on its own—how to do it.

Embedded system architectures invariably center around a microcontroller.

The point I’m trying to make is that embedded systems have everything to do with control engineers. Control engineering has a central role in embedded system development, and, as embedded systems become ever more important part of our technological civilization, control engineering will gain a dominant role in the engineering community.

We now live in what has been called the “Information Age,” but I submit that we’ll soon realize that it would be better called the “Age of Automation.” The past 60 years, during which we developed information processing technology, have just been the opening credits to a movie that will make the film version of War and Peace seem like a short-form ad for toothpaste.

During the Age of Automation, embedded control systems will become ubiquitous (means “everywhere”), pervasive (means “ever present”), and, well, we won’t do anything without them. Think Star Wars. In fact, think “magic” because things will happen pretty much just because we want them to. As long as we keep the upper hand, the automated systems that we embed into everything will, like well trained puppies, stay ever alert to whatever they think we want, and scurry off to provide it.

The hard part, as legions of science fiction writers have told us, will be keeping the upper hand. The very hardest part, as only a handful of science fiction writers have told us, will be self control. Scout up a copy of the 1956 film Forbidden Planet.

With ultimate power comes ultimate responsibility. 

Posted by Charlie Masi on October 15, 2007 | Comments (0)