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Get Smart - Jim Pinto's Connections for Growth & Success
Pinto's List: 10 New Technologies for Industrial Automation
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Issue # 278 (Feburary 22, 2010)
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Keeping an Eye on Technology Futures
No Hidden Agendas
New Attitudes
No Platitudes
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Pinto's List: 10 New Technologies for Industrial Automation
by
Jim Pinto
Pinto's List: 10 new technologies for industrial
automation
Most new technologies originate from developments
in the military (low volume, high cost) or commercial (high volume, low cost)
markets. For industrial automation markets, products typically involve medium
volume and medium cost. Hence, automation products should take advantage of new
technology from both military and commercial markets to utilize in industrial
applications.
From a review of various forecasts, here is my
list of 10 technologies that industrial automation products and systems could
and should utilize:
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Wireless networks: Lots of small, cheap,
low-power wireless devices proliferating in the plant and connecting all
traditional "field" instruments.
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MEMS-tiny, low-cost, low-power sensors:
Battery-powered sensors that (coupled with wireless networks) monitor
products, processes, machines, and almost everything else in the factory.
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Wireless PDAs: For everything in the factory,
plant, or process - communications, calibration, diagnostics, maintenance,
windows to the plant network.
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RFID: Physical items with cheap chip labels
you can read from up to 60 feet away, used for all kinds of factory ID,
inventory tracking, logistics.
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Robotics and mechatronics: Labor-saving
mechanisms for the factory and plant environments, cheaper and more
affordable.
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Displays: More LCD displays in automation
products of all kinds for easier programming and user diagnostics; built-in
HMI.
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Lighting: LEDs producing more and purer
light, changing color, using a tenth as much power, and lasting thousands of
times longer than incandescent lights. Many more applications in sensors,
actuators, and a variety of automation products.
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Telematics: Some automobile gadgets extending
to automation products in the factory and process plant.
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Peer-to-peer and grid computing: Sharing
unused computing power, significant growth of peer-to-peer I/O.
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Solar power: Organic compounds that mix up
and spread out like paint-used in tank farms and outdoor equipment.
Cheers,
Jim Pinto
jim@jimpinto.com
San Diego, CA. USA
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