Vineet Aggarwal, Project Manager of NI's Embedded Systems, pointed out that unlike humans, machines require a series of instructions to operate smoothly. The significance of automation lies in enabling machines to know where to act and what actions to take without errors. By adding more instructions, machines can handle more tasks and anticipate potential issues earlier.However, machines are ultimately different from humans. When humans are tired, they know they need to rest, but machines will continue working indefinitely unless given a rest instruction. Therefore, while instructions are taken for granted in human cognition, they are not for machines at all. The evolution from automation to intelligence is essentially about continuously providing more instructions, enabling machines to make more efficient and accurate preliminary judgments, thereby improving production efficiency, accelerating testing speed, extending machine lifespan, and reducing personnel casualties. Different instructions drive machines to evolve to varying degrees, but the ultimate goal is to make machine behavior closer to that of humans.Of course, achieving a high level of automation, even intelligence, in machines requires an enormous number of instructions. If the data volume is large and information processing is distributed across different platforms, it will not only cause significant problems with overall consistency but may even exceed the load capacity of the core platform itself.Guo Huangzhi, NI's Marketing Manager, stated that the original intention of the platform built by NI for industrial automation is to allow the entire system to perform signal discrimination and motion control through a single processing core—just as humans handle all things through a single brain. This can minimize the probability of errors.
Three Major Directions of Industrial Automation
Automation is undoubtedly a powerful tool for factory production. There are three important development directions in industrial automation: performance improvement, cost reduction, and functional safety. In terms of performance improvement, current technologies such as smart grids and intelligent production tools all emphasize high performance, including energy conservation, carbon reduction, and higher efficiency, to achieve the goal of energy conservation and carbon reduction. For cost reduction, the key lies in the use of single chips and multi-axis control.Multi-axis control, in particular, is crucial. In the past, most robotic arms used in factories had only four to five joints. In the future, to meet the needs of factory automation, improve efficiency, and reduce costs, it will be necessary to design robotic arms with more complex structures that can work on multiple axes simultaneously, rather than different axes working in a time-sharing manner as in the past.The emphasis on functional safety is actually a guarantee of generalized life safety, which has become a global trend. It involves protecting machines from damage and personnel from injuries. If an automated production line requires frequent maintenance and shutdowns, it will cause huge losses. In addition, frequent machine failures not only easily damage the equipment itself but also pose risks to personnel safety.Currently, many manufacturers are promoting products that meet these needs. For example, leading FPGA manufacturers Altera and Xilinx continue to launch FPGA reference designs related to industrial automation; major measurement manufacturer NI focuses on its industrial automation development platform centered on its LabVIEW graphical development software. The industrial automation market is booming.Multi-axis Control is the Key to Industrial Upgrade
In the robotics industry, common types of robots include Delta Robots and robotic arms used in industrial production lines. If we focus on the industrial automation market, robotic arms are currently the focus of attention. Because the level of factory automation depends on the technical level of robotic arms.Jiang Yungui, Marketing Development Manager of Altera's Industrial Business Unit in the Asia-Pacific region, stated that to improve the degree of automation in industrial production lines, the main trend for robotic arms is toward multi-axis development. As the name suggests, multi-axis control means that multiple different motors on the same robotic arm can act simultaneously or in a time-sharing manner. The purpose is to allow the entire production process of a single product to be completed on the same production line, without the need for multiple production lines, thereby saving substantial labor and time costs.However, to achieve multi-axis control, the number of motor axes on the robotic arm must be very large. These different motors may operate in conjunction simultaneously or in a time-sharing manner, but the key lies in their ability to coordinate with each other. That is, when one axis rotates to a specific angle, several other axes must reach their corresponding positions. This involves complex calculations of the time difference in multi-axis rotation, which is why FPGAs with parallel processing capabilities have an advantage over CPUs or MCUs that can only perform serial processing in the field of industrial automation.Jiang Yungui gave an example: taking the production line of a semiconductor packaging factory, the operation of robotic arms during chip packaging is very complex, requiring up to more than 60 axes of operation. In other words, on the same production line, more than 60 actions must be performed simultaneously to complete a single packaging process, involving very complex mechanical movements. During processing, when one axis rotates to a certain angle, other axes must cooperate to reach specific positions. This coordinated movement is the most complex part of robotic arm design. Another example is the cutting of helicopter propeller blades, which requires simultaneous five-axis linkage. In addition to the robotic arm rotating on its own, the cutting tool must also rotate simultaneously, making it a very complex multi-axis simultaneous linkage processing.For industrial automation, the more multi-axis applications there are, the higher the level of production line processing can be raised. Through complex multi-axis processing, products can have more variability. This is also the trend of industrial automation.The Growing Importance of Machine Vision
NI also emphasizes the importance of machine vision. In many cases, factory operators often make mistakes in manual inspection due to fatigue and human illusions. Huang Xiangsheng, NI's Technical Marketing Engineer, said that NI's Machine Vision Development Module is specifically designed for developing and deploying machine vision applications. It has built-in hundreds of functions that can capture images through multiple cameras, and perform image processing operations such as image enhancement, object positioning, object recognition, part measurement, and object presence inspection.In fact, adding sensors to robotic arms—such as CCD video modules to enable correct machine movement and positioning, or sensors to make machine operation more sensitive and intelligent—is an important development direction of industrial automation. Currently, the LabVIEW Machine Vision Development Module can capture and process images through multiple cameras and machine vision software, thus reducing maintenance costs and development time. If hardware replacement is needed, it is only necessary to import existing code.Huang Xiangsheng said that the biggest advantage of this development module is its complete set of algorithms for image processing. Whether it is optical character recognition (OCR) for pharmaceutical packaging or defect inspection of solar panels, various machine vision application problems can be solved through the algorithm database of the machine vision development module.The Pivotal Role of Industrial Ethernet
In an automated factory, items such as Industrial Networking (Industrial Ethernet), Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), servo drives, IO, and HMI are highly valued. Taking the most well-known machine tools (CNC) among export products as an example, a complete lathe, milling machine, grinder, etc., almost covers all the above key components.Among these key components, Industrial Ethernet plays a pivotal role. Because in automated factory production lines, information transmission is connected through Industrial Ethernet. Industrial Ethernet can not only be used in industrial automation but also in motion control, smart grids, high-speed rail carriages, MRT gate coordination, textile machines, machine tools, etc.—all are application areas of Industrial Ethernet.The transmission line of Industrial Ethernet is the same as the Ethernet cable used in ordinary PCs. Traditional industrial transmission lines, including address lines, data lines, and control lines, require a large bundle of parallel lines. However, through Industrial Ethernet, only one line is needed to transmit commands to control data, eliminating the need for a large number of wires. Industrial Ethernet also has functions required for industrial applications, such as redundancy and time scheduling management. Although Industrial Ethernet is not entirely the same as home PC Ethernet, their core principle is consistent.Jiang Yungui said that major manufacturers have launched their own standards for Industrial Ethernet. For example, Siemens' own standard is PROFINET, Rockwell's standard in the United States is EtherNet/IP, Germany's Beckhoff promotes EtherCAT, and Austria's B&R focuses on Ethernet Powerlink. Each major manufacturer has launched its own protocol, hoping that the market will adopt their own protocols—essentially acting as both player and referee—which has led to a chaotic market with inconsistent standards.Although each manufacturer has its own standard, they must also support other manufacturers' protocols to gain market share. But with so many Industrial Ethernet standards, how to address this issue?Currently, there are many solutions on the market. For example, using ASICs, but only fixed types of protocols can be selected. Some manufacturers make various protocols into small modules, changing modules to support different protocols according to customer needs. However, the disadvantage is that multiple modules must be made for different protocols, which not only increases costs but also lacks flexibility in management. Although these methods can solve the problem, none of them are optimal.Jiang Yungui pointed out that in fact, a single FPGA is sufficient to solve these problems. Since FPGAs are programmable logic chips, any desired protocol can be supported by writing the protocol's IP into the FPGA—completely flexible and adaptable.Unmanned Factories Are No Longer a Dream
From automation to intelligence, the ultimate goal of industrial production lines is to create a truly unmanned working environment. But is this just a dream, or will it really come true one day? Generally speaking, machines need to be programmed by humans to operate. Currently, many robots have begun to possess intelligent learning capabilities, allowing them to evolve through experience.Guo Huangzhi said that enabling machines to have learning functions is actually very difficult, but it has already been achieved. In contrast, achieving factory automation is much easier than enabling machines to learn on their own. From this perspective, fully automated unmanned factories are not an unattainable dream.In fact, many factories have successively adopted fully unmanned machine operations in some areas. This is clearly the initial realization of unmanned factories. In the future, the scope of unmanned areas in factories will inevitably continue to expand, allowing more tasks to be completed by machines.The article and images are sourced from the internet. Please notify us for deletion if there is any infringement. Thank you.
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