Control Engineering articles from March 2008

Control Engineering archives from March 2008

Safety: Tale of Two Applications.
March 1, 2008... Hank Hogan for Control Engineering Two applications show how control system safety can be implemented using new machine technologies for less overall cost. When done correctly, safety systems can be fun - or at least can make sure...

Ensuring OPC interoperability, security.
March 1, 2008... Renee Robbins, Control Engineering The need for security is often at odds with the need for easy interoperability. Users need software from different vendors to communicate, but greater openness in one area can lead to vulnerability...

Building block diagrams.
March 1, 2008... C.G. Masi, Control Engineering The term 'block diagram' refers to a type of diagram used by engineers to visualize system interactions at a high level. Block-diagram visualization allows system engineers to separate needs analysis from...

Fieldbus: Growing Globally.
March 1, 2008... Peter Welander, Control Engineering While considered mainstream technology, fieldbus adoption in process industries is still far from commonplace. The picture for users remains upbeat, but incomplete in many respects. While the...

Process Controllers Predict the Future.
March 1, 2008... Vance J. VanDoren, Ph.D., P.E., Control Engineering The Superposition Principle allows feedback controllers to anticipate how linear processes will react to control efforts. A feedback controller can steer a process variable toward the...

The Culinary Art of Mechatronics.
March 1, 2008... C.G. Masi, Control Engineering Good cooks know that good ingredients make good dishes. Cooking up good mechatronic systems also takes the right hardware and software. If you're a Food Channel fan, as I am, you probably have heard Alton...

2007 marks a year of success, progress and prosperity in Russia.
March 1, 2008... Inna Lukasik, General Manager, Control Engineering Russia The year 2007, as expected, was a successful year for the entire Russian economy. High oil prices and high domestic political motivation for investment ensured fairly good growth...

Going green: Automation is key to China's aggressive energy plans.
March 1, 2008... Kenny Fu, Editor in Chief, Control Engineering China In recent decades, extreme atmospheric conditions such as snowstorms, sandstorms, rainstorms, high temperature and drought have all occurred across China. Global warming caused by...

Infrastructure opportunities abundent in Asia.
March 1, 2008... Bob Gill Bob Gill, Editorial Director, Control Engineering Asia In Asia, increasing urbanization, unbridled economic growth, and years of public-sector neglect mean that countries need to spend US$700 billion per year to develop and...

Connecting plant and enterprise: more than Ethernet and databases.
March 1, 2008... Marc A. Moschetto, Editorial Director, Control Engineering North America As you read through the pages of our annual Global Supplement, it will become readily apparent that we're all wrestling with the same or similar issues- regardless of...

Manufacturing in Poland: Creating a *mini-China* in Europe.
March 1, 2008... Pietrusewicz Krzysztof, Editor, Control Engineering Poland, and assistant professor, Institute of Control Engineering, Szczecin University of Technology, Poland Many investors and analysts have begun calling Poland 'small China'. According...

Europe: *The first economy of the low-carbon age*.
March 1, 2008... Michael Babb, Editor, Control Engineering Europe It's a new era in the fight against climate change, says European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso. The 27 countries of the European Union have proclaimed far-reaching mandates to...

Japan considers EtherCAT, other networks.
March 1, 2008... Shin Kai for Control Engineering With more than 108,000 visitors gathered at the System Control Fair 2007 (SCF2007) in Tokyo last November, the EtherCAT Technology Group (ETG) took its first steps toward promoting its unique and advanced...

Models Aid Controller Design.
March 1, 2008... Vance VanDoren, Ph.D., P.E., Control Engineering Mathematical models provide valuable insight into process behavior. In order to maintain a process variable at some desired setpoint, a feedback controller must be configured to...

Video for Process Control.
March 1, 2008... Latimer Schneider, Panasonic While video helps with plant security and surveillance, it can also support critical process control functions. Sometimes a technology becomes 'type cast' in industrial environments, suggesting that it can...

Quantifying Cyber Security Risk.(Company overview)
March 1, 2008... Morgan Henrie, University of Alaska; Paul Liddell, Alyeska Pipeline Service Part 1: Basic risk analysis techniques can help you understand the cyber threats to industrial control systems and SCADA systems overseeing electric utility...

'Low-tech' IT solution for paperwork.(information technology)
March 1, 2008... Dennis Brandl Finding vital business information can be a time-consuming and frustrating task. Office personnel, vendors, and customers can generate volumes of paper. Yet, the volume of office information can pale in comparison to the...

Tour: Guess the company.(Editorial)
March 1, 2008... Mark T. Hoske, editor-in-chief I love facility tours and did another in February. Guess where? Eleven hints follow. 1 . It is a business one year older than the U.S. town that shares part of its name. 2 . It was established before...

It's a green world.
March 1, 2008... Marc Moschetto, editorial director Each year, as we assemble our Global Supplement, it's fascinating to see what trends and technologies are affecting manufacturers in other parts of the world. Each nation wrestles with its own unique...

ABB and MIT go green to inspire.(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
March 1, 2008... Staff The The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and ABB recently announced the formation of an energy research partnership aimed at helping to meet the world's need for clean electricity and energy efficiency. Through this...

Control Engineering launches redesigned website.(Website overview)
March 1, 2008... Staff If you've recently visited controleng.com -Control Engineering magazine's online home - you've undoubtedly noticed substantial changes. In early February, we redesigned the site to make it more usable, more concise and easier to find...

Industrial control shipments finish strong in '07.
March 1, 2008... Staff According to a report issued by the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA), the Primary Control Index grew by 8.3% in the fourth quarter of 2007 relative to the third quarter. When compared to the same quarter in the...

Japanese research satellite to use magnetic read only memory (MRAM) to hunt sprites in the upper-atmosphere.
March 1, 2008... Staff Sprites, the somewhat whimsical name given to complex upper-atmosphere optical flashes known as transient luminous events (TLE), were first photographed by Space Shuttle astronauts on Oct. 21, 1989, although apocryphal sightings by...

Industry leadership updates.(Company overview)
March 1, 2008... Staff Mike Bradley joins Apprion as CEO Mike Bradley, former president of Invensys' Wonderware division, has been named chief executive officer of Apprion. Bradley will succeed Steven Lambright, a founder of Apprion, who will remain...

OMAC unveils corporate membership program.(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Staff Automation and controls might be getting more open and easy to work with after OMAC (Open, Modular, Architecture Control User Group) announced a Corporate Membership program. A key benefit members receive is a seat on the OMAC...

Dataforth engineers overcome the aliasing 'gremlin'.
March 1, 2008... Staff Electromagnetic interference (EMI), noise, grounding, accuracy, resolution, aging, drift, isolation, and noisy power supplies can cause problems in applications. One subtle gremlin often goes unnoticed but can lurk in the background...

Professor receives $50,000 Honda grant to develop holographic instrument panel controls.
March 1, 2008... Staff Tarek El Dokor, director of the Machine Vision Lab at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, was awarded a $50,000 Honda Initiation Grant for development of holographic instrument panel controls and displays. 'It implements a software...

Digital factory interface: XML control logic standard accepted by AutomationML.
March 1, 2008... Staff The XML standard, an open and non-proprietary software interface for the interchange of industrial and process control programs, is progressing and gaining acceptance, according to a spokesperson for PLCopen, the organization that...

By the Numbers.
March 1, 2008... Staff 2 policy databases from International Energy Agency (IEA) were updated in February on Renewable Energy and on Energy Efficiency. www.iea.org 3 to 6 drops of food die and a light colored beverage are the two ingredients could...

Extended temperature PC/104-Plus computer.
March 1, 2008... Staff VersaLogic has announced the RoHS-compliant version of its extended temperature Lynx single-board computer for embedded applications. Featuring the same technical specifications as its non-RoHS counterpart, the Lynx EPM-4h is rated...

Slim industrial Ethernet switch.
March 1, 2008... Staff Aaxeon Technologies has announced additional slim line models in the Lanolinx line of industrial Ethernet switches. The unmanaged Ethernet switches are 45% thinner than previous models. New models have four 10/100 copper ports and...

Print Product Exclusive: HMI/SCADA solves tough projects.
March 1, 2008... Staff GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms announces that Cimplicity Version 7.5, the latest addition to the company's family of HMI/SCADA products, is available for shipping in late March. Cimplicity 7.5 extends the product's ability to solve...

RTD instrument claims instant results.
March 1, 2008... Staff Data Translation's DT9872, an RTD version of the TEMPpoint Temperature Measurement Instrument product line, is a PC-based instrument that allows direct RTD measurements. It features virtually no warm-up time, according to the...

Ethernet radio provides secure I/O.
March 1, 2008... Staff Phoenix Contact has announced the RAD-80211-XD-BUS, a wireless Ethernet radio with modular I/O and firmware capabilities. It combines secure wireless communication with control of up to eight I/O modules. Up to 64 digital, analog and...

VME/VXS board boasts PowerPC, FPGA.
March 1, 2008... Staff Pentek, Inc. has released Model 4207 for high-performance digital signal processing and data-acquisition systems. The board employs Freescale's MPC8641D dual core PowerPC AltiVec processor and a Xilinx Virtex-4 FX Series FPGA. The...

Secure data recording.
March 1, 2008... Staff Eurotherm's T2550 PAC, an affordable control unit that provides process efficiencies and protects against controller or communications failures, provides secure data recording with dual redundancy at point of measurement. Redundant...

Tire making quality control.
March 1, 2008... Staff Making rubber tires involves a complex, multi-faceted manufacturing process. To enhance production, Honeywell has introduced the MXProLine Wire Calendar Quality Control System (QCS), a next-generation system that enhances visibility...

Compact magnetic encoder.
March 1, 2008... Staff The ERM 2400 Series of modular magnetic encoders from Heidenhain features more compact dimensions than the current ERM 200, already commonly used on C axes in lathes. They can be used at higher rotational speeds, making them useful...

Flat panel controller provides power options.
March 1, 2008... Staff Kontron's flat panel division expands its aFLAT series with the CRTtoLCD-8 flat panel controller, providing a wide range power supply (12-24 V) to support industrial applications. The controller is an interface, converter, and scaler...

Active harmonic filter addresses power quality.
March 1, 2008... Staff Schneider Electric has announced the release of its newest model of the Square D AccuSine PCS Active Harmonic Filter (AHF). The AHF provides simple, effective means to mitigate harmonics, reduce process-related voltage fluctuations,...

New ZigBee module combines high range with ultra-low power.
March 1, 2008... Staff MeshNetics has introduced its amplified ZigBee/802.15.4 2.4GHz RF module, which the company says occupies less than a square inch of space and combines seemingly incompatible qualities of high range and low power. Range tests...

HMI with remote Internet control.
March 1, 2008... Staff EZAutomation says it offers the first dedicated human machine interface (HMI) with remote Internet control by introducing Webserver/remote control to the EZSeries touch panels. This introduction shifts perception of PLC HMIs, since...

HMI software: One-tag creation.
March 1, 2008... Staff FactoryTalk View Machine Edition (ME) from Rockwell Automation is a machine-level human machine interface (HMI) that supports open and embedded operator interfaces to help enhance, monitor and control individual machines or small...

MES Closes Information Gap.(Company overview)
March 1, 2008... Jeanine Katzel, Control Engineering Users give stamp of approval to tools that facilitate data sharing and improve day-to-day plant operations. Survey results show implementation, integration not always simple, but effort generates...

Engineering inspiration.
March 1, 2008... Staff When we were putting together the cover feature for the January issue ('Closing the Skills Gap), our research told us that this was a hot topic for our readers, their employers and the industry in general. However, we had no idea...

Crush control optimizes wine production.
March 1, 2008... Staff With more than 20 varietals in its portfolio, the Clos du Bois winery in California is known for producing sophisticated wines that offer complexity and aging potential. But consumer demands, increasing competition and thinning...