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AUTOMATION-COMPONENTS AND ARCHITECTURE

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 AUTOMATION- COMPONENTS AND ARCHITECTURE
Adarsh M.Kalla
Ph.D, Dairy Engineering, SRS of National Dairy Research Institute, Bengaluru

Abstract
In today's competitive global market, for the survival of any industry, manufacturing
companies need to be flexible, adaptive, responsive to changes, proactive and be able to produce
a variety of products in a short time at a lower cost. Global competition necessitates the use of
every resource. Machines must become even more flexible and user-friendly. To cope with the
increasing global competition and meet consumer demands, these industries require new
technologies and practices for competitive advantages in the market and there is a need for
increased automation in the industry. For better implementation of automation, there is a need to
basically understand the basics and the role of automation in industries. A good automation
design involves selection and integration of appropriate sensors, actuators and controls. The
industrial automation system as a whole is a complex system organized hierarchically in
different levels, structured using different components and controls that relate and interact with
each other to perform the intended role. There are different types and levels of automation
available, such as Fixed, Programmable, Flexible and Integrated automation. The selection of
automation systems depends on the flexibility and level of integration in manufacturing process
operations. As with every technology, automation also has its pros and cons; the advantages
primarily related to the savings it offers especially in terms of time and labour. The concerns for
implementation of automation arise from the capital investment it incurs and social issues it
raises.

Introduction
In today's competitive global market, for the survival of any industry, manufacturing companies
need to be flexible, adaptive, responsive to changes, proactive and be able to produce a variety of
products in a short time at a lower cost. Global competition necessitates the use of every
resource. Machines must become even more flexible and user-friendly. To cope with the
increasing global competition and meet the consumer demands these industries require new
technologies and practices for competitive advantages in the market and there is a need for
increased automation in the industry.

The industrial automation basically consists of two words industry and automation. The term
industry means systematic economic activity; economic activities may be related to manufacture,
service or trade. We are primarily concerned about manufacture or production industries, where
automation is required. The term automation comes from two Greek words “auto” means self
and “matos” means moving; hence it is a machine which moves by itself or a self acting
machine. The word automation was coined in the mid 1940s by the U.S. automobile industry to
indicate the automatic handling of parts between production machines, together with their
continuous processing at the machines. The advances in the computers and control systems have
extended the definition of automation. By the middle of 20th century, automation had existed on
a small scale, using mechanical devices to automate the production of simply shaped items.
However the concept became practical with the addition of computer, whose flexibility allowed
it to drive almost any sort of task.

Definition: Automation can generally be defined as set of technologies that results in operation
of industrial machines and systems without significant human intervention and achieves
performance superior to manual operation. Automated machines don’t make mistakes due to
fatigue; it does what it is expected to do each time with the same quality. It can also handle
machines which are much larger and not possible to do by human operator. Hence automation
achieves performance which is superior to manual operation. Automation in its full sense, is
achieved through the use of a variety of devices, sensors, actuators, techniques and equipments
that are capable of observing the manufacturing process, making decisions concerning the
changes that need to be made in the operation, and controlling all aspects of it (Gupta and Arora,
2007).

Automation is a step beyond mechanization, where human operators are provided with
machinery to help them in jobs. Industrial robotics are said to be the most visible part of
automation. Modern automated processes are mostly controlled by computer programs, which
through the action of sensors and actuators, monitor progress and control the sequences of events
until the process is complete. Decisions made by the computer ensure that the process is
completed accurately and quickly.

Automation is a technology dealing with the application of mechatronics and computers for
production of goods and services. Manufacturing automation deals with the production of
goods it includes:

 Automatic machine tools to process parts.

 Automatic assembly machines.
 Industrial robots.
 Automatic material handling.
 Automated storage and retrieval systems.
 Automatic inspection systems.
 Feed back control systems.
 Computer systems for automatically transforming designs into parts.
 Computer systems for planning and decision making to support manufacturing.
Society in a daily endeavors has become so dependent on automation that it is difficult to
imagine life without automation engineering. In addition to the industrial production with which
it is popularly associated, it now covers a number of unexpected areas. Trade, environmental
protection engineering, building engineering, medicinal engineering, agriculture and food
industry are some of the areas where automation is playing a prominent role. Over the last few
years, the food manufacturing industry has experienced unprecedented growth and became one
of the major forces in the economy. Various studies indicate that the food industry has been
rather slow to adopt new automation technologies, due to various factors (ilyukhin, etal.,2001).
Gradually, safety considerations, mandated by legislatures, entered the scene. Food safety
became the dominant factor in considering the participation of humans in the process of food
production. The process of handling raw material and delivering the finished goods to the
customer provided plenty of opportunity for contamination. Hence it became evident, that
machines could perform some of these activities in a more sanitary manner than human beings.
In addition, as the cost of the machinery used in the automation of food declined and at the same
time labour costs increased, automation flourished (Doxanakis and Kefalas, 2008)..

Mechanization v/s automation.

Mechanization refers to the use of powered machinery to help a human operator in some task.
The use of hand powered tools is not an example of mechanization. The term is most often used
in industries. The addition of powered machine tools; such as the steam powered lathe
dramatically reduced the amount of time needed to carry out various tasks, and improves the
productivity. Today very little construction of any sort is carried out with hand tools.
Automation and mechanization are often confused with each other, though it should not be too
hard to keep them apart. Mechanization saves the use of human muscles; automation saves the
use of human judgment. Mechanization displaces physical labour, where as automation displaces
mental labour.

Mechanization is the replacement of human power by machine power. Mechanization often

replaces craftwork and creates jobs for unskilled labour. It also only affects one or two industries
at a time. Mechanization moves slowly and the job displacement is short term. Mechanization is
what occurred during industrial revolution. Automation is the replacement of human thinking
with computers and machines. Automation tends to create jobs for skilled workers at the expense
of unskilled and semi-skilled workers. It affects many industries at the same time, moving
rapidly. It also creates longer-term job displacement and had been more characteristic since the
1950s (Gupta and Arora, 2007).

Social issues of automation.

Automation has contributed to modern industry in many ways. Automation raises some of the
social issues. Among them is automation impact on employment/ unemployment. Mainly people
fear that automation result in layoffs and unemployment; they believe that its evils considerably
outweigh its benefits. Basically, automation does take over job performed by men; but
automation need not bring unemployment as some people fear, for three very positive reasons:

1. In terms of the number of men required to produce a product, the reduction is a

temporary displacement which can be offset by the demands of a broadening market, as
 well as the creation of new industries. And don’t forget, it still takes many men’s to build
service and operate any automatic machine.
2. Automation doesn’t happen over night; it is an evolutionary process. Manual, direct
labour work will be progressively transformed into work, which will be cleaner, easier,
safer and more rewarding to the worker, who, through the process of automation itself,
will be trained for the more skillful accomplishments required in the better jobs of the
future.
3. And the most important, automation is the necessary solution to a predicted shortage of
labour. It is designed to the work of men who are not there; it is a solution to a problem,
not a cause (Gupta and Arora, 2007).

Role of automation in industry.

The automation plays a very important role in better operation of an industry. It is very important
know how these technologies produce a tremendous advantageous effect from the point of view
of economy. The various manufacturing industries have now acquired automation at different
stages; hence it becomes primarily important to know what an industry does, and then we can
identify the role of automation that enhances the profit of these industries.
An industry essentially starts with a raw or unfinished material. For example in iron industry the
raw material is iron ore and finished material is steel, in dairy industry the raw material is raw
milk and finished goods are the various dairy products (pasteurized milk, cream, butter, milk
powder etc). The unfinished materials are the partially finished goods for example in car
manufacturing industry you buy lot of parts manufactured by other industries and you assemble
them to manufacture a car. In processed cheese industry the cheese blocks are the unfinished
goods for manufacturing of processed cheese. So you can use a raw material or either an
unfinished material to finally obtain a finished product, this is the essential function of any
factory. To accomplish this operation it requires many things like energy, man power,
infrastructure of various kinds (land, equipments, water etc) and finally by using particular
manufacturing process raw material is converted into finished products.

Raw/unfinished material

Energy, man power, infrastructure manufacturing process

Finished product

Fig1. Basic function of an industry.

The basic goal of every industry is to make profit hence, it is necessary to understand what
affects the profit. The automation affects every aspects of profit making of an industry; hence
automation is very crucial for success of any industry. The basic profit equation can be defined
as:
Profit = (price/unit – cost/unit) x production volume

Here we assume that, over a given time whatever we produce we can sell them and output
incurred is the profit. From the above equation, we can easily understand that profit depends on

 Cost of production,
 Production volume
 And, price.

If you can bring down the cost of production profit will increase. Increasing the production
volume (assuming that market is large enough and you can sell all the products) the profit
increases. At the same time if you can sell a given product at higher price your profit will
increase. Automation has significant effect on these three factors, automation can bring down
cost, can increase production volume and sometimes can increase price (Harrision, 2004). This is
explained briefly as follows.

1. Cost/unit

The overall cost to produce one unit can be broken up into several components as shown in the
figure below:

The overall cost can be divided into 1.Material cost; it is the significant part of the total cost. 2.
Energy cost; energy cost is becoming more and more expensive due to depletion of natural and
stringent state policies. 3. Man power cost; for any firm man power is very essential you have to
recruit them, manage them and make a setup these all are going to be expensive. 4. Infrastructure
cost; cost of acquiring land cost of acquiring equipments. The material cost, energy cost and man
power cost are variable cost whereas infrastructure cost is fixed cost. The infrastructure cost /
unit can be calculated as
 Total fixed cost
𝑖𝑛𝑓𝑟𝑎𝑠𝑟𝑡𝑢𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑡/𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑡 =
No of units produced
The automation helps to reduce these costs. The material cost can be reduced by automation. For
example, if you metal sheet industry, and job to be performed is to cut several metal pieces from
a large sheet, suppose if you have an automated machine and if you have programmed it cleverly
then the amount of scrap you generate is going to be less and you obtain the product of better
quality which meet the standards hence the pieces to be discarded which don’t meet the
standards will be reduced. The energy cost is favorably affected by automation because
automated machines are programmed to work with optimal energy. Hence you can cut down a
lot of energy cost using automation. The man power cost is naturally cut down by use of
automated machines. The infrastructure cost comes down by use of automation. This is because
by use of automation you can produce much larger number of units in a given time during which
your infrastructure is going to be used. The infrastructure cost goes up by installation of more
sophisticated automated equipments but still infrastructure cost per unit will come down due to
the fact that the number of units produced increase massively and overall ratio will come down.
Hence by using automation one can cut down the cost in various ways.

2. Production volume

The production volume can be enhanced by automation due to several reasons. Let us assume
that we enough material enough man power and enough demand so that we can produce to the
extent that we can really produce in a day or an hour. The production volume can be increased if
we can reduce the time required to produce one unit product. The total manufacturing time can
be divided into several heads;

 Production time
 Material handling time
 Idle time
 Quality assurance time

Automation plays a major role in reducing these times

Production time:
The automated machines have significantly lower production times. For example, in machine
tools, manufacturing a variety of parts, significant setup times are needed for setting the
operational configuration and parameters whenever a new part is loaded into the machine. This
can lead to significant unproductive for expensive machines when a variety of products is
manufactured. In Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) Machining Centers set up time is
reduced significantly with the help of Automated Tool Changers, Automatic Control of
Machines from a Part Program loaded in the machine computer.

Material handling time:

The automation can reduce the material handling time. In manufacturing industries the raw
material has to move from machine to machine in order to flourish as a finished product. The
faster the material is taken from machine to machine greater is the time saved.

Idle time

It is non productive time, during which a piece of machinery is not being used but could be. The
automated machine has maximum capacity utilization and hence idle time can be reduced and it
can be always fed with work. The firms in this era are more focused on resource scheduling and
idle time scheduling for the best utilization of the resources.
Quality assurance time

Earlier the quality of product would be assured by lot by lot testing i.e. some random sample
would be picked from a lot and tested for its quality then if it passes it would be assumed that
whole lot is good. This is a time consuming process hence by using automated quality assurance
equipments the quality assurance time can be minimized.
Price

Price is related to demand, earlier we assumed that there was enough demand and you can sell
the entire product you have produced. The basic demand law says that as price increase demand
decreases as less people can afford it, and on other hand as price is reduced demand tends to
increase, the demand increases so much that the net profit increases. If you have demand for a
product and if you can make it of higher quality, then you can charge more for it, still there will
be demand for the product. So enhancing the quality increases the price and in turn profit
increases.
The automation plays a major role in enhancing the quality of the product; the quality of product
depends on the raw material, process of manufacturing and control. The automation highly
affects the process of manufacturing. For any process you require better control which can be
enhanced by automation, which can give improved quality of the product.

Types of production systems

It is very important to know various types of production system, to select an appropriate
automation for a given production system. The various production systems can be categorized
based on the scale and scope of production.

Continuous flow process: Manufactured product is in continuous quantities i.e., the product is
not a discrete object (product is measured in terms of quantities and not in terms of discrete
numbers). Moreover, for such processes, the volume of production is generally very high, while
the product variation is relatively low. Typical examples of such processes include Oil
Refineries, Iron and Steel Plants, Cement and Chemical Plants. In oil refinery industry, the
manufacture 4-5 kinds of products let us say gasoline, petrol kerosene but in huge quantity.
Mass Manufacturing of Discrete Products: Products are discrete objects and manufactured in
large volumes. Product variation is very limited. Typical examples are Appliances (such as
mixers telivisions), Automobiles etc.
Batch Production: In a batch production process the product is either discrete or continuous.
However, the variation in product types is larger than in continuous-flow processes. The same set
of equipment is used to manufacture all the product types. However for each batch of a given
product type a distinct set of operating parameters must be established. This set is often referred
to as the “recipe” for the batch. Typical examples here would be Pharmaceuticals, Casting
Foundries, Plastic molding, Printing etc.
Job shop Production: Typically designed for manufacturing small quantities of discrete products,
which are custom built, generally according to drawings supplied by customers. Any variation in
the product can be made. Examples include Machine Shops, Prototyping facilities etc.
The above types of production systems are shown below in the figure categorized according to
volumes of production and variability in product types. In general, if the quantity of product is
more there is little variation in the product and more varieties of product is manufactured if the
quantity of product is lesser (Sharma, 2001)

Types of Automation Systems

Automation systems can be categorized based on the flexibility and level of integration in
manufacturing process operations. Various automation systems can be classified as follows

Fixed Automation: It is used in high volume production, so you have to tune your automation to
that particular production. It uses dedicated equipment, which has a fixed set of operation and
designed to be efficient for this set. Continuous flow and Discrete Mass Production systems use
this automation. e.g. Distillation Process, Conveyors, Paint Shops, Transfer lines etc.
A process using mechanized machinery to perform fixed and repetitive operations in order to
produce a high volume of similar parts.
Programmable Automation: It is used for a changeable sequence of operation and configuration
of the machines using electronic controls. The changes are made more frequently may be once in
a week or a month, so you need to make the automation programmable, so that it is reasonably
easy to reprogram the machine or change the sequence of operation. Investment on
programmable equipment is less, as production process is not changed frequently. It is typically
used in Batch process where job variety is low and product volume is medium to high, and
sometimes in mass production also. e.g. in Steel Rolling Mills, Paper Mills etc.
Flexible Automation: It is used in Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS) which is invariably
computer controlled. Human operators give high-level commands in the form of codes entered
into computer identifying product and its location in the sequence and the lower level changes
are done automatically. Each production machine receives settings/instructions from computer.
These automatically loads/unloads required tools and carries out their processing instructions.
After processing, products are automatically transferred to next machine. It is typically used in
job shops and batch processes where product varieties are high and job volumes are medium to
low. Such systems typically use Multipurpose CNC machines, Automated Guided Vehicles
(AGV) etc (Trebilcock, 2010).
Integrated Automation: The fixed, programmable and flexible automations are mainly concerned
over a limited spatial range may be within a shop involving one or two machines. If you want to
control whole factory in a very integrated and optimal manner then you need to integrate all
these automation system and make them co ordinate and talk to each other so such a automation
is called as integrated automation.
It denotes complete automation of a manufacturing plant, with all
processes functioning under computer control and under coordination through digital information
processing. It includes technologies such as computer-aided design and manufacturing,
computer-aided process planning, computer numerical control machine tools, flexible machining
systems, automated storage and retrieval systems, automated material handling systems such as
robots and automated cranes and conveyors, computerized scheduling and production control. It
may also integrate a business system through a common database. In other words, it symbolizes
full integration of process and management operations using information and communication
technologies. Typical examples of such technologies are seen in Advanced Process Automation
Systems and Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM)
Architecture of industrial automation
The industrial automation system as a whole is a complex system. It contains various
equipments, controls, sensors, operator displays; various cabinets all together make a complex
system. Industrial automation system is organized hierarchically in different levels, which helps
to understand how this complex system is organized, what are the various elements of the
system, how they relate and interact with each other, what roles they perform.
Various components in an industrial automation system can be explained using the automation
pyramid as shown above. Here, various layers represent the wideness (in the sense of no. of
devices), and fastness of components on the time-scale.
Sensors and Actuators Layer: This layer is closest to the processes and machines, used to
translate signals so that signals can be derived from processes for analysis and decisions and
hence control signals can be applied to the processes. This forms the base layer of the pyramid
also called ‘level 0’ layer. Sensors and actuators act as eyes and arms of the controllers
Automatic Control Layer: This layer consists of automatic control and monitoring systems,
which drive the actuators using the process information given by sensors. This is called as ‘level
1’ layer.
Supervisory Control Layer: This layer drives the automatic control system by setting target/goal
to the controller. Supervisory Control looks after the equipment, which may consist of several
control loops. This is called as ‘level 2’ layer.
Production Control Layer: This solves the decision problems like production targets, resource
allocation, task allocation to machines, maintenance management etc. This is called ‘level 3’
layer.
Enterprise control layer: This deals less technical and more commercial activities like supply,
demand, cash flow, product marketing, new product development etc. This is called as the ‘level
4’ layer.

These functionalities are necessary for overall control of a factory, but it often turns out that not
necessarily all these layers are perfectly automated. Generally sensors and actuators are
automated and automatic control layers are also automated (most of the operation are
automated), but from supervisory control layer upward, it is not always true that you have
computer based automation for functioning the operations of that level, in fact some of these
operations may be very well done by human being.
For example- in large industries like oil refineries you will find control rooms/cabinets where
there will be number of computer monitors and a group of people who are actually sitting around
these monitors and constantly monitoring the process through these monitors they are generally
supervisors or the operators who perform lot of supervisory control functions.
At supervisory control level, some functions could be automated and some manually operated.
At production level, most of the operations at a time are performed by humans with the aid of
tools which help people perform the production control systems. To perform these we have
production manager, shift in charge engineer, technical officer’s etc. similarly at enterprise
control level, they have managers who use tools for performing the operations.

Nature of levels
The spatial scale increases as the level is increased e.g. at lowest level a sensor works in a single
loop, but there exists many sensors in an automation system which will be visible as the level is
increased. The lowest level is faster in the time scale and the higher levels are slower. The
aggregation of information over some time interval is taken at higher levels.
For example consider one sensor system which measures one process variable in the whole
machine, so it only looks at that variable, so in that sense the spatial scale is actually very
limited. In the whole factory there are several machines containing several process variables and
the sensor which is at level zero looks at one of them. Spatial its scope is limited and also has a
very small time scale since it gives value to controller over a very short time. If you go higher, at
automatic control level, one automatic controller may be taking control action by considering
several sensors hence its spatial scale increases. If you even go at higher level at supervisory
control level, one supervisory control will typically look after a number of automatic control
loops, i.e. it will be generally looking after one piece of equipment like boiler, compressor,
distillation column, furnace etc having many control loops. Hence it will have larger spatial scale
and time scale will also be larger, because the function of supervisory control is to change the set
point, the set points are not changed every moment, they are typically made after some hours.
For example a boiler in a factory may be operating at different loads at different time intervals,
where the operator changes the set point (steam pressure) after certain period of time. Similarly
at production control level, a section may be made of several machines, so the production control
is typically done at section level. While the enterprise control is done at the overall enterprise
level.

There is lot of information transmission between different levels of automation system, for this
the above layers are connected by various types of communication systems. They actually
connect all these devices so that they can seamlessly exchange information, send results, do lot
of configuration management etc. For example the sensors and actuators may be connected to the
automatic controllers using a point-to-point digital communication, while the automatic
controllers themselves may be connected with the supervisory and production control systems
using computer networks. Some of these networks may be proprietary. Over the last decade, with
emergence of embedded electronics and computing, standards for low level network standards
(CANBus, Fieldbus etc.) for communication with low level devices, such as sensors and
actuators are also emerging.

In industrial automation technology the area of concern is the controls. It is very important to
know various elements of the industrial control.

Industrial control system

The major elements of control system are

 Sensor
 Actuators
 Controllers

Industrial Sensor system

Scientific and engineering sensors and instrument systems of a spectacular variety of size,
weight, cost, complexity and technology are used in the modern industry. However, a close look
would reveal that all of them are composed of a set of typical functional elements connected in a
specified way to provide signal in a form necessary. The various tasks involved in the
automation systems. Fig 2.1 below shows the configuration of a typical sensor system.

Functional configuration of typical sensor element

In above Fig a sensor system is shown decomposed into three of its major functional
components, along with the medium in which the measurement takes place. These are described
below.

The physical medium refers to the object where a physical phenomenon is taking place and we
are interested in the measurement of some physical variable associated with the phenomenon.
Thus, for example, the physical medium may stand for the hotga in a furnace in the case of
temperature measurement or the fluid in a pipe section in the case of measurement of liquid flow
rate.
The sensing element is affected by the phenomenon in the physical medium either through direct
or physical contact or through indirect interaction of the phenomenon in the medium with some
component of the sensing element. Again, considering the case of temperature mea surement, one
may use a thermocouple probe as the sensing element that often comes in physical contact with
the hot object such as the flue gas out of a boiler-furnace or an optical pyrometer which
compares the brightness of a hot body in the furnace with that of a lamp from a distance through
some window and does not come in direct contact with the furnace. In the more common case
where the sensing element comes in contact with the medium, often some physical or chemical
property of the sensor changes in response to the measurement variable. This change then
becomes a measure of the physical variable of interest. A typical example is the change in
resistivity due to heat in a resistance thermometer wire. Alternatively, in some other sensors a
signal is directly generated in the sensing element, as is the case of a thermocouple that generates
a voltage in response to a difference in temperature between its two ends.
The signal-conditioning element serves the function of altering the nature of the signal
generated by the sensing element. Since the method of converting the nature of the signal
generated in the sensor to another suitable signal form (usually electrical) depends essentially on
the sensor, individual signal conditioning modules are characteristic of a group of sensing
elements. As an example consider a resistance Temperature Detector (RTD) whose output
response is a change in its resistance due to change in temperature of its environment. This
change in resistance can easily be converted to a voltage signal by incorporating the RTD in one
arm of a Wheatstone's bridge. The bridge therefore serves as a signal-conditioning module.
Signal conditioning modules are also used for special purpose functions relating to specific
sensors but not related to variable conversion such as `ambient referencing' of thermocouples.
These typically involve analog electronic circuits that finally produce electrical signals in the
form of voltage or current in specific ranges.
The signal processing element is used to process the signal generated by the first stage for a
variety of purposes such as, filtering (to remove noise), diagnostics (to assess the health of the
sensor), linearisation (to obtain an output which is linearly related with the physical measurand
etc. Signal processing systems are therefore usually more general purpose in nature.
The target signal-handling element may perform a variety of functions depending on the target
application. It may therefore contain data/signal display modules, recording or/storage modules,
or simply a feedback to a process control system. Examples include a temperature chart recorder,
an instrumentation tape recorder, a digital display or an Analog to Digital Converter (ADC)
followed by an interface to a process control computer.
While the above description fits in most cases, it may be possible to discover some variations in
some cases. The above separation into subsystems is not only from a functional point of view,
more often than not, these subsystems are clearly distinguishable physically in a measurement
system.
Modern sensors often have the additional capability of digital communication using serial,
parallel or network communication protocols. Such sensors are called “smart” and contain
embedded digital electronic processing systems.

Industrial actuator system

Functional configuration of atypical actuator system

In above Fig. an actuator system is shown decomposed into its major functional components, The
salient points about the structure are described below.
The electronic signal-processing element accepts the command from the control system in electrical
form. The command is processed in various ways. For example it may be filtered to avoid applying
input signals of certain frequencies that may cause resonance. Many actuators are themselves closed
feedback controlled units for precision of the actuation operation. Therefore the electronic signal-
processing unit often contains the control system for the actuator itself.
The electronic power amplification element sometimes contains linear power amplification stages
called servo-amplifiers. In other cases, it may comprise power electronic drive circuits such as for
motor driven actuators.
The variable conversion element serves the function of altering the nature of the signal generated by
the electronic power amplification element from electrical to non-electrical form, generally in the
form of motion. Examples include electrohydraulic servo valve, stepper/servo motors, Current to
Pneumatic Pressure converters etc.
The non-electrical power conversion elements are used to amplify power further, if necessary,
typically using hydraulic or pneumatic mechanisms.
The non-electrical variable conversion elements may be used further to transform the actuated
variable in desired forms, often in several stages. Typical examples include motion-to-flow rate
conversion in flow-valves, rotary to linear motion converters using mechanisms, flow-rate to heat
conversion using steam or other hot fluids etc.
Other Miscellaneous Elements such as Auxiliaries for Lubrication/Cooling/Filtering, Reservoirs,
Prime Movers etc., sensors for feedback, components for display, remote operations, as well as safety
mechanisms since the power handling level is significantly high.

Automatic controller
This is also often termed as Automatic Control, Process Control, Feedback Control etc. Here the
controller objective is to provide such inputs to the plant such that the output y(t) follows the
input r(t) as closely as possible, in value and over time. The structure of the common control
loop with its constituent elements, namely the Controller, the Actuator, the Sensor and the
Process itself is shown. In addition the signals that exist at various points of the system are also
marked. These include the command (alternatively termed the set point or the reference signal),
the exogenous inputs (disturbances, noise).

The difficulties in achieving the performance objective is mainly due to the unavoidable
disturbances due to load variation and other external factors, as well as sensor noise, the
complexity, possible instability, uncertainty and variability in the plant dynamics, as well as
limitations in actuator capabilities.
Most industrial control loop command signals are piecewise constant signals that indicate
desirable levels of process variables, such as temperature, pressure, flow, level etc., which ensure
the quality of the product in Continuous Processes. In some cases, such as in case of motion
control for machining, the command signal may be continuously varying according to the
dimensions of the product. Therefore, here deviation of the output from the command signal
results in degradation of product quality. It is for this reason that the choice of the feedback
signals, that of the controller algorithm (such as, P, PI pr PID), the choice of the control loop
structure (normal feedback loop, cascade loop or feedforward) as well as choice of the controller
gains is extremely important for industrial machines and processes. Typically the control
configurations are well known for a given class of process, however, the choice of controller
gains have to be made from time to time, since the plant operating characteristics changes with
time. This is generally called controller tuning.
A single physical device may act as the controller for one or more control loops (single-
loop/multi-loop controller). Today, many loop controllers supplement typical control laws such
 as PID control by offering adaptive control and fuzzy logic algorithms to enhance controller
response and operation. PID and startup self-tuning are among the most important features.
Among other desired and commonly found characteristics are, ability to communicate upward
with supervisory systems, as well as on peer-to-peer networks (such as Fieldbus or DeviceNet),
support for manual control in the event of a failure in the automation. Software is an important
factor in loop controllers. Set-up, monitoring and auto-tuning and alarm software for loop
controllers is now a common feature. The controllers also accept direct interfacing of process
sensors and signals. Choice of inputs includes various types of thermocouples, RTDs, voltage to
10 V dc, or current to 20 mA. While most sophisticated controllers today are electronic.

Conclusion
Automation has many advantages including making our lives comfortable and enable human
beings to do the things which otherwise would have been impossible to do manually with same
efficiency and accuracy. Automation changes the nature of jobs and demands new skills and it is
a myth that it leads to unemployment “It is a solution to a problem, not a cause”.

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