Tutorial: What causes these analog aggravations, and how to get rid of them. A technology refresher from Process Instrumentation & Sensors Monthly eNewsletter.
Displays, touchscreens, terminals—those human-machine interfaces are quite literally everywhere. Little more than pushbuttons and switches a mere decade ago, these devices have grown in sophistication, bringing management and operations the control and information they need.
Unlike traditional control-system technologies, such as PLCs, PACs, and PC-based systems, embedded control provides a wide choice of controller targets. Microcontrollers are the best known, but this tutorial shows how ASICs and FPGAs provide unique advantages as well.
In this day and age, why use serial communications, such as RS-232, RS-422, and RS-485? Digital industrial networks, fieldbuses, device- and sensor- level networks (also USB) all support many vendors’ products and can offer advanced features for configuration and diagnostics.
If you’ve been wondering if and when you might be forced to address cyber security issues with your process control or SCADA systems, watch efforts with electric utilities. Implementations going on now could serve as models.