INTRODUCTION TO AUTOMATION TECHNOLOGY

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INTRODUCTION

Accompanying the evolution of human society, tools have been developed to assist humans to perform all kinds of activities in humans’ daily life. Tools not only reduce the effort that men have to put into those activities, they also help men perform activities that would otherwise be impossible due to the limitations of the human body—for example, using a telescope to see objects on the moon. However, humans are not satisfied with developing tools to enhance productivity or conquer their limitations. People have always dreamed of building machines to do their work for them, allowing them more leisure time. This dream can be realized through the help of modern computer and communication technologies. Activities in the manufacturing enterprises that are automated by com- puter and communication technologies can be summarized into (but not limited by) the following seven categories (Huang and Nof 1999):

1. Design: Powerful computation speeds up activities in enterprises. For example, design activities are improved because of powerful CAD workstations.

2. Decisions: Powerful computation allows many simulation trials to find a better solution in decision making. For example, an optimal material handling equipment selection can be ob- tained through repeated simulation runs.

3. Sensing: Input devices (e.g., sensors, bar code readers) can gather and communicate environ- mental information to computers or humans. A decision may be made by computer systems based on the input information. The decision may also trigger output devices (e.g., robot arms, monitors) to realize the decisions.

4. Recovery: Computer systems may apply techniques of artificial intelligence (AI) (e.g., fuzzy rules, knowledge-based logic, neural networks) to improve the quality of activities. For ex- ample, a robot system may be recovered automatically from error conditions through decisions made by AI programs.

5. Collaboration: Distributed designers can work together on a common design project through a computer supported collaborative work (CSCW) software system.

6. Partners: A computer system in an organization may automatically find cooperative partners (e.g., vendors, suppliers, and subcontractors) from the Internet to fulfill a special customer order without any increase in the organization’s capacity.

7. Logistics: Logistics flows of products and packages are monitored and maintained by net- worked computers.

Although these seven categories reflect the impact of computer and communication technologies, they are driven by four automation technologies: physical automation systems, automatic control systems, artificial intelligence systems, and integration technology. Physical automation systems and automatic control systems represent two early and ongoing achievements in automation technology. Through automatic control theories, most systems can be controlled by the set points defined by users. With the support of both automatic control theories and modern digital control equipment, such as the programmable logic controller (PLC), physical automation systems that consist of proc- essing machines (e.g., CNCs), transportation equipment (e.g., robots and AGVs), sensing equipment (e.g., bar code readers) can be synchronized and integrated.

Artificial intelligence systems and integration technology are two relatively recent technologies. Many AI techniques, such as artificial neural networks, knowledge-based systems, and genetic al- gorithms, have been applied to automate the complex decision making processes in design, planning, and managerial activities of enterprises. Additionally, integration techniques, such as electronic data interchange (EDI), client-server systems, and Internet-based transactions, have automated business processes even when the participants are in remote sites.

In this chapter, we will discuss the above four technologies to give readers comprehensive knowl- edge of automation technology. Section 2 addresses physical automation technologies that are applied in the processing, transportation, and inspection activities. Section 3 introduces classical automatic control theory. The purpose of addressing automatic control theory is to review the traditional methods and explain how a system can be automatically adjusted to the set point given by users. Section 4 addresses artificial intelligence techniques and introduces basic application approaches. Section 5 introduces integration technology, which is based mostly on today’s information technology. Section 6 introduces the emerging trends of automation technologies, which include virtual machines, tool perspective environment, and autonomous agents. Section 7 makes some concluding remarks.

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