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Dissertation on Control System: Industrial Automation, Robotics and

Mechanical System

Dr. Nancy Agens, Head,

Technical Operations, Phdassistance

In Brief:

You will find the best dissertation

research areas / topics for future

researchers enrolled in Engineering

and technology. In order to identify the

future research topics, we have reviewed

the Engineering topics (recent peer-

reviewed studies) on industrial automation.

Industrial Automation is one of the

important dissertation topics in the year

2020. Industrial Automation is the

combination of instrumentation & control

system and artificial intelligence. Industrial

Automation mainly used in fields like

robotics and control engineering.

Keywords: Control System, Industrial

Automation, Robotics, Mechanical System,

Dissertation, Engineering & Technology,

I. INTRODUCTION

After the era Britain industrial

revolution, a large amount of effort has

always been made to establish complicated

strategies to support people with various

production activities (Vasseur & Dunkels,

2010). An industrial manufacturing method

comprises a sequence of devices by which a

mixture of raw materials passes and

becomes the final outcome (Mehta & Reddy,

2015). The word "machine" here could be

any stuff such as, a conveyor belt, drill,

motor,etc., that comes under

electromechanical equipment or chemical

devices such as chemical combustion

systems, dryers, ovens, etc.

Currently, the Industrial Automation may

have pulled over the production process in

industries and it is quite hard to envision a

production section without automation

devices(Ernst & Phillipson, 1987). Many

aspects are contributing to automation

system deployment in industrial production

such as high-quality product specifications,

high volume demand, high product

reliability demands, etc.

II. INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION

Industrial Automation is a method of

running machinery as well as other

industrial equipment using automated

logical programs and with the aid of

industrial equipment, eliminating human

input in decision-making and physical

control processes (Dongxu, Wei, Yun, Peijie,

& Jiancheng, 2018; Vasseur & Dunkels,

2010). The description above is not an easy

one to grasp; however, with the aid of a

small instance, let us seek to understand

what industrial automation is.

X-ray Filmless Inspection Device

Versatile manufacturing facilities

Turnkey Swage Automated System

Large production devices

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Fig 1. Fourth Industrial Revolution: Industrial Automation

Fig 2. Industrial Automation

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III. INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION

PROCESS HIERARCHY

Industrial automation structures

could be very complicated in nature, having

a large range of devices operating with

automation technology in coordination. The

industrial automation process hierarchy

consists of three levels such as field level,

Control Level and information or Enterprise

level. The figure explains the hierarchical

structure of the various hierarchical levels of

the automation framework.

Fig 3. Industrial Automation Process Hierarchy

1. FIELD LEVEL

The lowest level of the hierarchy is

the field level. Field level of automation that

involves machines like actuators as well as

sensors in the profession(S. Li, 2014). The

principal function of such field equipment is

to move process and system data to the next

higher level for tracking and analyzing. And

it also involves process variable control by

actuators. For example, we may define this

level as the arms and eyes of a given system.

2. CONTROL LEVEL

This level comprises of different

automation tools, such as PLCs, CNC

machines, etc., that obtain system variables

from different sensors(Frenzel, 2010). The

automated controller's control actuators

dependent on the sensor signals transmitted

Information Level

Control Level

Field Level

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and the software or control methodology

used.

Supervising and Production Control

Level

Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs)

3. INFORMATION OR

ENTERPRISE LEVEL

Enterprise Level is the industry

automation top-level that controls the entire

automation framework(Kim, 1992). The

responsibilities of such a stage involve

production planning, a study of consumer

and demand, orders and sales, etc. So it is

more about economic operations and less

about the technological elements.

IV. INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION

SYSTEMS TYPES

1. FIXED OR HARD

AUTOMATION

Fixed automation is used to conduct

static and repeated processes to reach high

production levels. It utilizes unique

objective or devoted machinery to automate

the assembly or handling operations of fixed

sequences. When working, the product

design is fairly difficult to modify or alter. It

is also rigid in offering product range, but

improves efficiency with a greater rate of

production and lowers unit cost.

2. PROGRAMMABLE

AUTOMATION

Programmable automation is ideally

applied to automated batch processing

where the size of the material is medium to

high. However, in this, the framework for

new equipment or a series of activities is

difficult to alter and reorganize. New

platform or series of operations reconfigure

thus needs a long installation. This

automation system is exemplified by

numerically controlled machines, steel

rolling mills, paper mills, automotive robots,

etc

3. FLEXIBLE OR SOFT

AUTOMATION

Flexible automation machine

includes automatic control machinery which

provides great flexibility to make product

design adjustments. Such improvements can

be achieved rapidly via the human operators

' instructions provided in the type of codes.

Process automation helps producers to

manufacture various products with different

ranges, instead of as a single mix process.

Some instances of such an automation

system were automobiles, auto driven

vehicles and CNC machines with

multifunctional use.

V. MERITS OF INDUSTRIAL

AUTOMATION SYSTEM

a. THE PRODUCTIVITY

IMPROVED

Factory or process plant or

manufacturing automation enhances

production rate by good production control.

It enables mass production by dramatically

reducing installation time per product with a

higher quality of production. Hence it

creates a large amount of production for

assigned labour input.

b. PROVIDES HIGH OPERATION

COSTS

The incorporation of different

methods with automated machinery in the

industry reduces cycle times and energy,

thereby reducing the necessity of human

labour. Therefore automation has prevented

the investment on workers.

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Fig 4. The Productivity Improved

Fig 5. High Operational Costs

c. THE PRODUCT QUALITY

ENHANCEMENT

The automation removes human

interference, it eliminates the risk of human

errors. By dynamically regulating and

tracking industrial processes at all phases

right from the start of an item to a final

product, coherence and quality of the

product with higher compliance could be

safeguarded with automation.

d. REDUCES ROUTINE

INSPECTIONS

The requirement for manual testing of

different process variables is absolutely

eliminated by automation. The industrial

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systems change system parameters

automatically to fixed or requested values

utilizing closed-loop control techniques by

making use of automation innovations.

Fig 6. Product Quality Enhancement

Fig 7. Reduces Routine Inspections

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e. RAISING SAFETY STANDARDS

Industrial automation improves

workers safety by replacing people with

automated machines in dangerous working

environments. Industrial robots, as well as

robotic machines, are typically introduced in

these perilous and risky places.

Fig 8. Raising Safety Standards

VI. DEMERITS OF INDUSTRIAL

AUTOMATION SYSTEM

People out of work. As most of the job is

performed by machines, the need for

manual labour is very minimal.

Unable to automate all the required tasks

using industrial automation technology.

For instance, the manual installation,

items with unusual sizes and shapes are

usually left. Atomically precise

manufacturing and algorithms seemed to

change this trend.

The initial outlay to incorporate an

automation framework is extremely high.

A group of qualifies skilled staff will

always be needed for an operation as

well as maintenance requirement.

VII. CONCLUSION

Industrial Automation is one of the main

research subjects in 2020. Industrial

Automation is a fusion of the

instrumentation & control system and

artificial intelligence. It is utilized in the

field of robotics and control engineering.

Some of the benefits of industrial

automation are enhancing efficiency,

offering high cost of production, improving

product quality and rising safety standards.

Although it has myriads of positive points, it

also has significant demerits as a loss of

human employment.

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Fig 9. Demerits Of Industrial Automation System

VIII. FUTURE SCOPE

Blockchain for industrial automation IoT

connected with 5 G(Mistry, Tanwar,

Tyagi, & Kumar, 2020)

Industrial automation used in Spanish

industrial enterprises(Camiña, Díaz-

Chao, & Torrent-Sellens, 2020)

Intelligent recognition of faults for

industrial automation framework(Pan,

Chen, Xie, Chang, & Zhou, 2020)

The transformation from determinant-

driven urbanization to technology-driven

urbanization, in Dongguan City,

China(X. Li, Hui, Lang, Zheng, & Qin,

2020)

Optimized automation assembly:

Recognising technological productivity

and employee satisfaction scheme

criteria(Fletcher et al., 2020)

REFERENCES

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(2020). Automation technologies: Long-term effects

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