Top 5 Control Engineering articles Feb. 19-25

Articles about industrial controllers, electric motor innovations, using a DCS for optimized operations, the Engineers' Choice winners, and standards and error avoidance were Control Engineering’s five most clicked articles from Feb. 19-25, 2018. Miss something? You can catch up here.

By Chris Vavra February 26, 2018

The top 5 most read articles online, from Feb. 19-25 for Control Engineering, covered industrial controllers, electric motor innovations, using a DCS for optimized operations, the Engineers’ Choice winners, and standards and error avoidance. Links to each article below.

1. Product design: Incorporating commercial technologies into industrial controllers

Industrial controllers are using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies such as Ethernet, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), USB, and MicroSD cards to improve price/performance ratios, shrink form factors, and add new features.

2. Innovations in electric motor technology: the first 100 years

Variable frequency drive (VFD) and other motor advancements that help manufacturers originated from experiments and developments in the 19th century with electric coils and the three-phase induction motor.

3. Updating a DCS for optimized operations

If a company’s distributed control system (DCS) is more than 10 years old, it is likely a significant barrier to reaching your goals. But modernized or upgraded properly, the DCS could become vital in achieving and surpassing goals such as enhancing operations and improving productivity while exceeding return on investment (ROI) expectations.

4. 2018 Engineers’ Choice Awards: Spotlight on innovation

The 31st annual Control Engineering Engineers’ Choice Awards shines a light on 26 categories of control, instrumentation, and automation products, revealing the best of those introduced in 2017 as chosen by the Control Engineering print and digital audience.

5. Product design: Standards, error avoidance help

Look at how standards and error avoidance helped with applying new level technology to a process sensor for insights into other automation designs.

The list was developed using CFE Media’s web analytics for stories viewed on controleng.com, Feb. 19-25, for articles published within the last two months.

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


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