| PC Control: Exciting Automation Technology! |
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Fascination, excitement, “fun with technology”, these are important driving forces for automation engineers. We all know it, this “tingling” sensation shortly before a thought materializes, the satisfaction to see the result of the thinking process and of our work in action! Of course, this possibly somewhat pleasure-orientated attitude alone is not sufficient. The professional and responsible application of technology is the basis for all automation development. The attraction lies in the combination of knowledge and responsibility, but also of “fun and excitement”. This is particularly true for PC control, our PC based automation technology. The PC control philosophy merges the worlds of automation and IT. Just as in nature, this “cross-breeding” leads to interesting and exciting developments, generating new properties and performance classes. The Industrial PC makes one of the most powerful computer platforms available for direct process control at the machine. For example, the concentrated power of a complete scientific computer center of the eighties is today available online in an individual packing machine or forming press. How are we utilizing this power? Naturally, we replace the classic PLC, thereby outperforming the traditional hardware PLC by a whole order of magnitude in terms of cycle time. And of course we integrate the motion controller and replace the mechanical mainshaft with servo axes with central electronic camshaft control. And with cycle times of less than 100 µs, tool protection is dealt with at the same time, leading to significant cost reductions. But the PC control philosophy is capable of much more. Basically, PC control means “software instead of hardware”, and this is the basis of the “power” and therefore the attraction of the PC based control technology. Apart from the simple replacement of conventional control technology, every automation engineer can invent and implement new algorithms that increase machine output, improve the quality of the products, minimize the power consumption, reduce machine downtime, etc. The tools are provided by PC control in the shape of modular, open, software-based control technology. What will we do in 2005 with a PC with a clock rate of 10 GHz and a user memory of 1 Gbyte that communicates with the machine via a 1 Gbaud fieldbus? Automation technology will indeed remain exciting! But let‘s move on to the actual reason for these somewhat philosophical observations on the subject of automation technology. The occasion is the first edition of our company magazine “PC control”, whose name naturally is also the content. The publication targets two topics. PC control is primarily a company magazine, and as such is intended to provide information for our worldwide customers, members of staff, suppliers and of course also the general public about the latest developments at Beckhoff. We will feature product presentations, interesting application examples and project reports, as well as business and staff news. Furthermore, PC control is also intended to provide a discussion forum for automation technology developments. We feel that the principle of PC compatible control technology is a very good basis and thread for a such a discussion, since it touches a large number of automation applications and frequently has significant influence upon them. We will try to offer you interesting articles about basic principles of real time, PLC, motion control, communication, visualization, etc., and of course news about current trends. PC control is the first “magazine” from Beckhoff. As with all our products,
we are aiming high. We would be pleased to receive your feedback or suggestions, which you
can send to: Hans Beckhoff
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