Automatisme Industriel

courses and books in the industrial sector: Automation and electrical engineering

Industrial automation

If you are looking for automation in the Internet, you will find automatic door systems or automatic mechanisms in life, but you will not find programmable controllers, so you have to look for "industrial automation".

What is automatism?

It is performing certain operations without the help of your muscles and even without the help of your brain. Here are the ingredients that go into it.

1 / Mechanization

The first invention is the wheel, then comes the gears and then the connecting rods

Then come the transfer machines (conveyor belts), weaving machines

Then come the engines (diesel then the explosion engines)

2 / Electrification

Which makes it possible to carry out electrolyses, that is to say to separate a molecule from a liquid

Which makes it possible to send a signal and receive it

Which allows you to heat a resistance

That allows to run a motor for a pump, a compressor or a carpet

3 / The sensors

Which make it possible to detect a position, a temperature, a pressure, a flow

There are also pushbuttons that let you know if someone has pressed it.

Switches, encoder wheels, auxiliary contacts to find out if a contactor is stuck.

4 / Actuators

Which are essentially electric motors and valves, but also heating resistors, electrodes

Actuators therefore make it possible to perform operations

5 / The pre-actuators

These are devices that activate actuators, such as contactors, distributors, electronic dimmers

6 / The energies

This is obviously electricity, but also pneumatics, which is very useful in explosive environments, and also hydraulics, which is very useful when it comes to exerting high pressures such as a press or a heavy gate.

7 / Communication networks

Which make it possible to exchange data, for example knowing what is the position of a sensor, giving the order to an actuator, exchanging production data, for example given the quantity to be produced or the desired temperature value, but also to have information on the state of the installation, for example knowing if the installation is in service, the level in the tank etc.

There are field networks which have time constraints (1 ms max. To transmit information) such as Pr-shell, there are networks which must transport important information and in reliable ways such as Tcp / IP. There are networks specializing in automation which only have a few functions, such as reading or writing a bit or a word, such as MOD BUS.

8 / Databases

It is a catch-all place, where all the information is stored and dated, it is very interesting to have a database which makes it possible to make statistics, it is enough to make requests for example to know if an actuator to been activated and then the corresponding sensor has been activated or more simply have the temperature curve or a state logger on each state is recorded with a common clock, this database will allow supervision, it is i.e. having screens that allow you to view a view in real time or in history

9 / The application, the programming

Once the previous elements have been defined, i.e. what mechanisms are provided, are there electrolyses, resistors to be heated, what are the actuators, what are the sensors, what are the energies implemented, what are the communications networks, for example is there a field network, what is the database made up of it remains to program the automations, that is to say define the order of operations to be carried out, what are the conditions for carrying out an operation.