Renee Robbins, Control Engineering

Visual Programming for Automation

Graphical programming methods have been around the manufacturing, automation, and instrumentation space for a long time. Software tools—ranging from National Instruments’ LabView to The MathWorks Simulink and including many proprietary PLC and DCS programming tools—are nothing like textual languages such as Cobol or C.

From Consumer Electronics to your HMI

Machine builders, HMI designers and industrial PC users take note: Smart phones and other consumer electronics are changing the way operators expect to interact with machines - and how you will create interfaces.

Advantages of FPGAs

FPGA design tools are increasingly available, allowing embedded control system designers to more quickly create and adapt FPGA hardware.

Wind power control systems go to (temperature) extremes

High-temperature uninterruptible power supply helps Danish control system designers handle Mongolian temperatures up to 55 ºC (131 ºF).

Sensors for High-Speed Applications

System design incorporating sensor technology can make in-process and inspection systems faster. Experts in printing/converting, tire/rubber inspection, robotic palletizing, and more provide engineering advice.

PackML Clarification and Implementation Assistance

The OMAC Packaging Workgroup (OPW) has been busy clarifying the recently ratified PackML standard and, at PackExpo Las Vegas 2009, it announced the availability of an implementation guide developed by Proctor & Gamble (P&G). OMAC technical director, Dave Bauman, also recently responded to some comments made by Dave Chappell through Control Engineering’s Make2Pack/ISA88 blog, furth...

Vision Sensor Helps Robot Rock On

Vision sensor, edge tool software, and a PLC make robot "Roxanne" a Guitar Hero winner-and gives her student-inventor crucial vision system experience.

How to Choose a Controller

A dozen application-specific lists, and more detailed information online, help you sort through controller choices no matter what type of system you're building or upgrading.

Engineering Labs Grow through Gifts and Partnerships

Donations from automation vendors to universities are addressing the skills gap and fueling innovation.

Machine vision’s GigE Vision standard

GigE Vision is a camera interface standard developed using the Gigabit Ethernet communication protocol. In industrial machine vision applications, GigE Vision allows fast image transfer using low cost standard cables over very long lengths. It also allows hardware and software from different vendors to interoperate easily.

Smart Drives Protect Their Motors

Like the self-maintaining robots of science fiction, modern machines have become more intelligent, and in some ways also more human. They are incorporating more decentralized intelligence, which operates like a human’s autonomic nervous system. This makes it possible for a packaging machine, for example, to protect itself from expensive breakdowns through quick reflexes, in the form of er...

Winning Technologies, Engineers’ Choice 2008

The Control Engineering Engineers' Choice Awards highlight the most notable new products from the previous year. This year's competition names winners and honorable mentions in 25 product categories, from a field of 85 nominees. Who did you nominate and choose as winners?

Process Automation Systems

Reed Research Group surveyed Control Engineering subscribers in November 2008 about their use of process automation systems. Selected results presented here are based on 128 completed responses from subscribers who evaluate, specify, recommend, install, and/or purchase process automation systems (PAS).

To See and Control

Anyone who’s seen a law-enforcement photo of their car rolling through a red light knows the power of video to monitor events, report exceptions, and initiate action—such as send notice of a moving violation and fine. If your town doesn’t have such video applications, it’s likely to soon.

Smart devices and linkages

In the northern Netherlands, high-quality magnesium chloride salt deposits lie 1,500 meters below the surface. About half a million tons are extracted every year by Dutch chemical corporation Nedmag Industries Mining and Manufacturing. Shell established the Nedmag site in 1979 because of its extensive natural gas reservoirs.

Molded Parts: Stamp, Place, Remove, Inspect

Filtertek, Inc. is a world innovator in filter technology. The Hebron, IL, manufacturer makes custom filtration products and fluid control devices for automotive, healthcare and consumer product applications. The company’s ingenuity is reflected in a portfolio of more than 340 issued patents and pending patent applications for novel designs of fuel filters, transmission sump filters, semi...

Inspection Systems Benefit from High-tech Components

Machine builders wanting to differentiate themselves are always looking for the best technology for the project at hand. Machine vision systems using state of the art hardware and software can help a machine builder gain an edge with regard to inspection systems. In this article, we’ll explore two different solutions for two very different quality control applications.

High-quality HMI access goes where it’s needed most

When you want to provide the best, you need to attend to all the details. Integrated Web Finishing Systems, or i-Web, is a supplier of inline and offline finishing equipment and systems for the graphic arts industry. Formerly JetWeb USA, the company has supplied the global printing industry for more than 25 years.

Ensuring OPC interoperability, security

The need for security is often at odds with the need for easy interoperability. Users need software from different vendors to communicate, but greater openness in one area can lead to vulnerability others. Users and vendors in the OPC community are addressing these issues as the standard evolves and grows in acceptance.

3D Does It

Could 2008 be the year that control engineers finally get what they need from product lifecycle management (PLM) software? Three-dimensional modeling and work cell simulation are providing real benefits today. Automotive OEMs and aerospace firms are pushing for more functionality, and demanding their suppliers join in the pursuit.

Overall Equipment Effectiveness

Overall equipment effectiveness, or OEE, takes the most common sources of manufacturing productivity loss and distills them into consistent metrics that can be used to monitor and improve manufacturing processes. OEE can be applied to machines, manufacturing cells and assembly lines, and is frequently used as a key performance indicator (KPI) in Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) and Lean manu...

Collaborative production systems

Despite the drive for integration between automation systems and operations management/enterprise systems, barriers still exist. Manufacturing engineers are beginning to understand the benefits of integration—increased asset utilization, maximum operational effectiveness, reduced fixed costs, etc.

Simulation made easier with an Ethernet infrastructure

Remember that last automation project? Remember the extended startup because of automation system software errors? The operator mistakes that caused reworked projects? The unscheduled shutdown from untested process interlocks? That near recordable emissions release? Remember the operations manager asking, “Isn’t there a better way to test our automation system and train operators b...

In Search of Satisfaction

During the month of May 2007, Control Engineering magazine gave its print and online subscribers a chance to talk about satisfaction. Specifically, we asked readers to rate their satisfaction with vendors and their products in 12 categories: DCS software; networking hardware; industrial computers; single- and multi-loop controllers; embedded hardware; historian software; linear motors; process ...

Upgrade without downtime

As a subsidiary of CSM, a global player in the food-ingredients industry, Purac is a leading producer of lactic acid-based biochemicals used in foods, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and other products. The company strives to improve the efficiency of its production and customer service in its facilities in the U.

More Challenge, More Income

The average Control Engineering subscriber has progressed predictably since we last surveyed print and online readers in 2005: He (and respondents are overwhelmingly male) is two years older (just over 48), has two more years at his current job (for a total of 9.17 years), and has almost 23 years of experience (compared to 21.

Stand Out Technologies

Every year, hundreds of new products are introduced, but only a few go on to greatness. At Control Engineering, we try to predict which those will be. The Control Engineering Engineers’ Choice Awards seek to highlight and honor the many automation, instrumentation, and control products introduced in the previous year, and give readers a chance to revisit some they may have missed.