Control Engineering hot topics, February 2019

Control Engineering's most clicked articles in February 2019 included stories about the Engineers' Choice Awards, upgrading hardware and software systems, robotics as a service, the 2019 System Integrator Giants, and more. Miss something? You can catch up here.

By Chris Vavra March 1, 2019

Hot topics in Control Engineering, for February 2019, included the Engineers’ Choice Awards, upgrading hardware and software systems, robotics as a service, the 2019 System Integrator Giants. These are based on the top 10 most read articles online in Control Engineering February. Links to each article below.

1. 2019 Engineers’ Choice Awards

Spotlight on innovation: Best automation, control, and instrumentation products in 26 categories.

2. Upgrading your hardware, software systems

An open, interoperable approach allows companies to get best-in-class solutions for hardware and software upgrades. See 10 reasons to upgrade process controls.

3. Robotics as a service gaining traction in manufacturing

Robotics as a service (RaaS), which allows manufacturers to leverage the benefits of industrial and collaborative robots in their facility without having to buy them, is becoming popular.

4. System Integrator Giants 2019

Three new companies joined the 2019 System Integrator Giants list in a year when most of the world’s top 100 integration companies saw overall business growth.

5. Cybersecurity required for safe IIoT robots

For a robot to be safe, it must also be secure from cyberattacks in the age of Industrie 4.0 and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Everyone in the information technology (IT) and operations technology (OT) departments are responsible for ensuring this happens.

6. Demystifying robot offline programming

Cover Story: Software suppliers are disproving preconceptions about robot offline programming (OLP) being too complicated or not cost-effective. Several companies have developed software programs designed to make robots smarter, faster, and more flexible in a variety of challenging applications.

7. Robotics and AI improve factories of the future

Cover Story: Robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) will improve product and service quality, create greater throughput, enhance employee safety, reduce variability, cut waste, and, most increase customer satisfaction.

8. Case study: DCS migration challenges and obstacles for process manufacturer

An industrial utility service company in Kentucky needed to upgrade and migrate its distributed control system (DCS), which came with a few challenges.

9. The future of IIoT software in manufacturing

A guide to understanding and using data distribution service (DDS), time-sensitive networking (TSN), and OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) for advanced manufacturing applications.

10. Future plant design links data, operations

Manufacturers are ready to invest in next-gen digital production.

On Mondays, see the top 5 articles of the prior week.

Chris Vavra, production editor, CFE Media, cvavra@cfemedia.com.


Author Bio: Chris Vavra is web content manager for CFE Media and Technology.