The development of industrial automation in China is mostly based on the introduction of complete sets of equipment for digestion and absorption, followed by secondary development and application. At present, China's industrial control automation technology, industry and application all have great development. China's industrial computer system industry has been formed. At present, industrial control automation technology is developing in the direction of intelligence, networking, and integration.
I. Low-cost industrial control automation based on industrial PCs will become the mainstream
As we all know, since the 1960s, Western countries have relied on technological advances (ie, new equipment, new processes, and computer applications) to begin the transformation of traditional industries, which has enabled the industry to develop rapidly. The biggest change in the world at the end of the 20th century was the formation of a global market. The global market has led to unprecedented fierce competition, prompting companies to accelerate time-to-market, quality, cost, and service. This is the company's TQCS. Although Computer Integrated Manufacturing System (CIMS) combines information integration and system integration, pursuing a more complete TQCS, enabling companies to "transmit the right information to the right people in the right way at the right time to make the right decisions." , that is, "five correct." However, such automation requires a large amount of investment. It is a high-investment, high-efficiency, high-risk development model that is difficult to adopt for most SMEs. In China, small and medium-sized enterprises and quasi-large-scale enterprises still take the road of low-cost industrial control automation.
Industrial control automation mainly includes three levels. From the bottom up, it is basic automation, process automation and management automation. Its core is basic automation and process automation.
The traditional automation system, the basic automation part is basically monopolized by PLC and DCS. The process automation and management automation part is mainly composed of various imported process computers or minicomputers. The prices of hardware, system software and application software are high. Businesses are discouraged.
Since the 1990s, due to the development of PC-based industrial computers (referred to as industrial PCs), PC-based automation systems consisting of industrial PCs, I/O devices, monitoring devices, and control networks have become rapidly popularized and become An important way for low-cost industrial automation. Almost all large-scale heating furnaces such as large-scale enterprises such as Chongqing Iron & Steel Co., Ltd. also dismantled the original DCS or single-loop digital regulators, and instead used industrial PCs to form control systems, and adopted fuzzy control algorithms to obtain good results.
Since PC-based controllers have proven to be as reliable as PLCs and accepted by operating and maintenance personnel, manufacturers one by one are adopting PC control solutions, at least in part. The PC-based control system is easy to install and use, and has advanced diagnostic capabilities, providing system integrators with more flexible options. From a long-term perspective, PC control systems have low maintenance costs. Since PLC is the most threatened by PC control, PLC suppliers are very uneasy about the application of PC. In fact, they have now joined the "wave" of PC control.
In recent years, industrial PCs have experienced an extraordinary and rapid development in China. From a worldwide perspective, industrial PCs mainly include two types: IPC IPCs and CompactPCI IPCs and their deformation machines, such as AT96 bus IPCs. Because the basic automation and process automation have high requirements on the operational stability, hot swapping and redundant configuration of industrial PCs, the existing IPC can no longer fully meet the requirements, and will gradually withdraw from this field, replacing it with a CompactPCI-based industrial control computer. The IPC will occupy the management automation layer. In 2001, the country established a major industrial automation project called "Industrialization of open control systems based on industrial control computers." The goal is to develop PC-based control systems with independent intellectual property rights. Within 3 years (occupies 30% of the total (in 5 years) 50% of the domestic market and achieve industrialization.
A few years ago, when "soft PLC" appeared, the industry thought that industrial PC would replace PLC. However, industrial PCs have not replaced PLCs so far. There are two main reasons: One is the reason for system integration; the other is the reason for the software operating system, Windows NT. A successful PC-based control system must have two points: First, all the work must be done by software on one platform; second, all the things needed by the customer should be provided. It can be foreseen that the competition between industrial PCs and PLCs will be mainly in high-end applications, with complicated data and high equipment integration. Industrial PCs cannot compete with low-cost micro PLCs, which is also the fastest growing segment of the PLC market. From the perspective of development trends, the future of control systems is likely to exist between industrial PCs and PLCs, and signs of such integration have emerged.
Like PLC, the industrial PC market has remained stable for the past two years. Industrial PC software is cheaper than PLC. Frost & Sullivan estimates that about $85 million of the world's $700 million annual industrial PC market is control software and $100 million is the operating system. By doubling in 2007, the industrial PC market has become very impressive.
Second, PLC in the direction of miniaturization, networking, PC and openness
For a long time, PLC has always been the main battlefield in the field of industrial control automation, providing a very reliable control program for a variety of automated control equipment, and formed a three-legged trend with DCS and industrial PC. At the same time, PLC is also suffering from the impact of other technical products, especially the impact of industrial PCs.
At present, there are about 200 PLC manufacturers around the world producing more than 300 products. The domestic PLC market is still dominated by foreign products, such as Siemens, Modicon, AB, OMRON, Mitsubishi, GE products. After years of development, there are about 30 PLC manufacturers in China, but they have not formed a large-scale production capacity and brand-name products. It can be said that PLC has not yet formed a manufacturing industrialization in China. In PLC application, China is very active and the applied industry is also very wide. Experts estimate that PLC's domestic sales volume in 2000 was 15 (200,000 sets (of which imports accounted for about 90%), about 25 (3.5 billion yuan, annual growth rate of about 12%. It is estimated that by 2005 the national PLC demand will About 25 million sets, about 35 (45 million yuan.
The PLC market also reflects the status of the world's manufacturing industry, which has declined significantly since 2000. However, according to the prediction of Automation Research Corp., despite the global economic downturn, the PLC market will recover. It is estimated that the global PLC market will be US$7.6 billion in 2000 and will return to US$7.6 billion by the end of 2005, and continue to grow slightly.
Miniaturization, networking, PCization and openness are the main directions for the future development of PLC. In the early days of PLC-based automation, PLCs were bulky and expensive. However, in recent years, micro-PLC (less than 32 I/O) has appeared and the price is only a few hundred euros. With the further improvement and development of Soft PLC control configuration software, the market share with software PLC configuration software and PC-based control will gradually increase.
At present, one of the greatest trends in the field of process control is the expansion of Ethernet technology, and PLC is no exception. More and more PLC suppliers are now offering Ethernet interfaces. It is believed that PLC will continue to shift toward open control systems, especially those based on industrial PCs.
III. DCS System Designed for Measurement and Control Integration
Distributed control system DCS (Distributed Control System) came out in 1975, manufacturers mainly in the United States, Japan, Germany and other countries. From the middle and late period of the 1970s, China first introduced foreign DCS from large-scale imported equipment sets, and the first batch of imported items such as chemical fiber, ethylene and chemical fertilizers. At that time, DCS of all major industries in China (such as electricity, petrochemicals, building materials, and metallurgy) were all imported. In the early 1980s, at the same time of introduction, digestion, and absorption, it began to develop the technology of domestically produced DCS.
In the past 10 years, especially since the Ninth Five-Year Plan period, China’s DCS system development and production have developed rapidly, and a number of outstanding companies have emerged, such as Beijing and Lishi, Shanghai Xinhua, Zheda Zhongguan, Zhejiang Weisheng, and Aerospace. Measurement and Control Company, Institute of Electrical Engineering and Beijing Kangtuo Group. The DCS systems developed and produced by these enterprises not only significantly increased the number of varieties, but also had reached or approached the international advanced level in product technology. In the 4426 DCS systems applied nationwide in 2001, 1,486 domestic DCS systems were used, accounting for 35%. In just a few years, the situation that foreign DCS systems dominated in China has ceased to appear. These specialized companies not only occupy a certain market share and have accumulated the development of capital and technology, but also drastically reduced the price of DCS systems imported from abroad, contributing to China’s automation promotion business. At the same time, the export of domestic DCS systems is also increasing year by year.
Although the development of domestic DCS has made great progress, foreign DCS products have a higher market share in the domestic market, mainly Honeywell and Yokogawa products. The annual growth rate of China's DCS market is about 20%, and the annual market value is about 30 (3.5 billion yuan. As DCS has no substitute product in the petrochemical industry large automatic control devices in the past 5 years, its market growth rate will not decline. According to statistics, in 2005, more than 1,000 installations in China's petrochemical industry need to apply DCS control; the power system newly installed more than 10 million kilowatts of generating units each year, which requires DCS to achieve monitoring; many companies have used DCS for nearly 15 years (20 years, need to be updated and Therefore, the status of DCS as the main product of the automation instrument industry will not be shaken in the next five years.
According to survey data released by the China Instrument Industry Association, the status of China's DCS market in 2002 is as follows:
Miniaturization, diversification, PCization, and openness are the main directions for the future development of DCS. The current market for small DCS has gradually been shared with PLCs, industrial PCs, and FCS. In the future, a small DCS may first be integrated with these three systems, and the "soft DCS" technology will first develop in a small DCS. PC-based control will be more widely used in small and medium-scale process control, and DCS manufacturers will also launch small DCS systems based on industrial PCs. The open DCS system will be extended both upwards and downwards simultaneously, so that the field data from the production process will flow freely throughout the enterprise, seamlessly connect the information technology and control technology, and develop toward the integration of measurement and control.
Fourth, the control system is in the direction of fieldbus (FCS) development
Due to the development of 3C (Computer, Control, Communication) technology, the process control system will be developed from DCS to FCS (Fieldbus Control System). FCS can completely disperse PID control into the field device. The fieldbus-based FCS is a fully distributed, fully digital, fully open and interoperable next-generation production process automation system that will replace the on-site one-on-one 4 (20mA analog signal line, to the traditional industrial automation control system system The structure brought revolutionary changes.
According to the definition of IEC61158, fieldbus is a digital, bi-directional transmission, multi-branch structure communication network installed between the field device in the manufacturing or process area and the automatic control device in the control room. The field bus enables the measurement and control equipment to have digital computing and digital communication capabilities, improving signal measurement, transmission and control accuracy, and improving the system and equipment functions and performance. The IEC/TC65 SC65C/WG6 working group began work on the introduction of a single fieldbus standard in the world in 1984. It took 16 years of hard work. In 1993, IEC61158-2 was introduced, and the subsequent standard development became chaotic. . There are eight IEC61158 fieldbus international standard subsets published in early 2000. They are:
Type 1 IEC Technical Report (FFH1);
Type 2 Control-NET (supported by Rockwell USA);
Type 3 Profibus (supported by Siemens, Germany);
Type 4 P-NET (Danish Process Data company support);
Type 5 FFHSE (formerly FFH2) Fast Ethernet (supported by Fisher Rosemount, USA);
Type 6 Swift-Net (US Boeing Company Support);
Type 7 WorldFIP (supported by Alsto, France);
Type 8 Interbus (supported by Phoenix Contact, USA).
In addition to the eight fieldbuses of IEC61158, IEC TC17B passes three bus standards:
SDS (Smart Distributed System); ASI (Actuator Sensor Interface); Device NET. In addition, ISO has published the ISO 11898 CAN standard. Among them, Device NET was approved as a national standard by China on October 8, 2002, and was implemented on April 1, 2003.
Currently, in various field bus competitions, COTS (Commercial-Off-The-Shelf) communication technology represented by Ethernet is becoming a new bright spot in the field bus development. Its focus is mainly on two aspects:
(1) Whether there is a unified fieldbus standard worldwide;
(2) Whether the fieldbus system can completely replace the DCS system that is currently popular in the world.
The use of fieldbus technology to construct a low-cost fieldbus control system facilitates the intelligentization of on-site instrumentation, the decentralization of control functions, and the openness of control systems, in line with the technological development trend of industrial control systems. In order to speed up the development of fieldbus technology in China during the Ninth Five-Year Plan period, the State focused on the development and engineering of intelligent instrumentation and fieldbus technology, supplemented and improved process equipment, development devices and test equipment, and established intelligent instruments. And develop a production base for automated systems to form a modest scale economy. In 2000, the "Ninth Five-Year Plan" National Science and Technology Research Program "Research and Development of a New Generation of Distributed Control Systems" and "Fieldbus Intelligent Instrument Research and Development" were completed in succession. These two projects as well as the early completion of the "Fieldbus Control System Development" project, focusing on the coexistence of a variety of fieldbus protocols that have emerged internationally, have focused on the HART protocol and FF protocol fieldbus technology research.
In a word, the development of the computer control system will go towards the fieldbus control system (FCS) after experiencing the base type pneumatic instrument control system, the electric unit combined analog instrumentation control system, the centralized digital control system and the distributed control system (DCS). The direction of development. Although the fieldbus-based FCS has developed rapidly, there is still a lot of work to be done in the development of FCS, such as unified standards and smart meters. In addition, DCS is also required for the maintenance and reconstruction of traditional control systems. Therefore, FCS completely replaces traditional DCS also requires a long process, and DCS itself is also constantly developing and improving. To be sure, FCS combined with new technologies such as DCS, industrial Ethernet and advanced control will have a strong vitality. As an agile, convenient and reliable data transmission method, industrial Ethernet and field bus technology have been applied more and more in the industrial field and will occupy a more important position in the control field.
V. Instrumentation and Instrumentation Technology Development in the Direction of Digitalization, Intelligence, Networking, and Miniaturization
After 50 years of development, China's instrumentation industry has become quite basic, and a relatively complete range of production, research, and marketing systems has been initially formed. There are more than 6,000 various types of instrumentation companies with an annual sales of about 100 billion yuan, making it the second largest instrument and meter producer in Asia except Japan. According to customs statistics, with the exception of instruments and meters introduced with complete sets of supporting projects, last year imported instruments and meters totaled nearly 6 billion U.S. dollars, which accounted for about 50% of the total output value of China's instrumentation industry. However, at present, most of the products in China's instrumentation industry belong to the middle and low-end level. With the international digital, intelligent, networked, and miniaturized products gradually becoming the mainstream, the gap will further increase. At present, most high-end, large-scale equipment and equipment in China rely on imports. With mid-range products and many key components, foreign products account for more than 60% of the Chinese market, while domestic analytical instruments account for less than two-tenths of the global market share.
In March 2001, the outline of the 10th Five-Year Plan approved by the Fourth Session of the Ninth National People's Congress put forward for the first time that “putting into the development of CNC machine tools, instrumentation, and basic parts and components to an important position, and strive to improve the quality and technical level.†In August 2001, the State Development Planning Commission clearly listed instrumentation as an important technical equipment for the national economy. The “Tenth Five-Year Plan†of the instrumentation industry formulated and announced by the State Economic and Trade Commission established six high-tech industrialization projects:
1. Fully-open distributed control system and smart meters based on fieldbus technology;
2. New sensors;
3. Intelligent industrial control components and implementing agencies;
4. Environmental and pollution source monitoring instruments and automatic monitoring systems;
5. The instrument automation control system in the set of process equipment used for urban sewage treatment;
6. The instrument automation control system in the complete set of rotary gas purification equipment for steelmaking converters.
According to the forecast of the instrumentation industry, China's instrumentation market during the “10th Five-Year Plan†period was roughly: 162.8 billion in 2002, 179 billion in 2003, 199.6 billion in 2004, and 216.5 billion in 2005. In five years, the average annual market capacity was 180.6 billion yuan (equivalent to 22 billion U.S. dollars), of which industrial automation instrumentation and control systems accounted for 41%, scientific testing instruments accounted for 25%, medical instruments accounted for 17%, and others accounted for 17%, with an average annual growth. The rate will not be less than 10%.
The main development trends of instrumentation technology in the future:
* The development of instrumentation in the direction of intelligence, resulting in intelligent instrumentation;
* PC-based monitoring and control equipment, virtual instrument technology will develop rapidly;
* Instrumentation network, resulting in network instruments and remote measurement and control systems.
Some suggestions:
* Develop products with independent intellectual property rights and master core technologies.
* Strengthen the system integration capabilities of the instrumentation industry.
* Further expand the application of instrumentation.
Sixth, CNC technology to intelligent, open, network, information development
The first experimental numerical control system developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States in 1952 has now gone through 51 years. In the past 10 years, with the rapid development of computer technology, various levels of open CNC systems have emerged and developed rapidly. Currently we are moving in the direction of a standardized open architecture. In terms of structure, the CNC systems in today's world can be roughly divided into four types:
1. Traditional numerical control system;
2. Open NC system with “PC embedded NC†structure;
3. "NC embedded PC" structure of the open CNC system;
4. SOFT open CNC system.
The development and production of China's CNC system has made great progress through the introduction, digestion, and absorption of the "7th Five-Year Plan" and the "Eighth Five-Year Plan" and "Ninth Five-Year Plan" industrialization. It basically grasped key technologies and established CNC development. The production base has cultivated a group of numerical control talents, initially formed its own numerical control industry, and has also driven the development of electromechanical control and transmission control technologies. At the same time, with the development of economical CNC systems with Chinese characteristics over the years, the performance and reliability of products have been greatly improved and gradually recognized by users.
The overall development trend of foreign digital control system technology development is:
* The development of a new generation of numerical control systems in the direction of PC and open architecture;
* The drive device develops in the direction of communication and digitization;
* Enhanced communication capabilities to network development;
* The numerical control system develops intelligently in terms of control performance.
In the 21st century, human society will gradually enter the era of knowledge economy. Knowledge will become the capital and power for the development of science and technology and production. The machine tool industry, as the equipment sector for machine manufacturing, industry, and even the entire national economy, will undoubtedly have its strategy. The importance of sexuality and the importance attached to it will also be more prominent.
In recent years, China's CNC machine tools have maintained double-digit growth. In 2001, China's machine tool industry output value has entered the world's fifth, machine tool consumption rose to the third place in the world rankings, reaching 4.739 billion US dollars, second only to the United States of 5.367 billion US dollars. The output value reached 26 billion yuan in 2002, and the output ranks fourth in the world. However, compared with developed countries, China's CNC machine tool rate is still not high, and the current production output numerical control rate is less than 30%; the numerical value of consumer value is less than 50%, while most developed countries are about 70%. As domestic CNC machine tools cannot meet the market demand, high-grade CNC machine tools and related components can only rely on imports, so that the import value of China's machine tools is increasing year by year. In 2001, the imported machine tools jumped to the second place in the world, reaching US$2.406 billion. 27.3% increase over the previous year.
Intelligentization, openness, networking and informationization have become the main trends in the development of CNC systems and CNC machine tools in the future:
* Toward high speed, high efficiency, high precision, and high reliability;
* Toward modularity, intelligence, flexibility, networking, and integration;
* Development in the direction of PC-based and openness;
* The emergence of a new generation of CNC machining processes and equipment, and the development of machining to virtual manufacturing.
* The integration of information technology (IT) and machine tools, as well as mechatronics advanced machine tools will be developed.
* Nanotechnology will form new development trends and new breakthroughs will be made.
* Energy-saving and environmental-friendly machine tools will accelerate development and occupy the vast market.
VII. Industrial control network will develop in combination with wired and wireless
Since the first civilian network system, ARCnet, was put into operation in 1977, wired LANs have been successful and rapidly developed due to their wide applicability and technological price advantages. However, in the industrial scene, some industrial environments prohibit or restrict the use of cables or the use of cables is difficult, and it is difficult for wired LANs to function. Therefore, wireless LAN technology has been developed and applied. With the continuous development of microelectronics technology, wireless LAN technology will play an increasingly larger role in industrial control networks.
Wireless LAN technology can connect wirelessly to network devices. People can access network resources anytime, anywhere, and at will, which is an important direction for the development of modern data communication systems. The wireless LAN can provide Ethernet interconnection without using a network cable. While promoting the development of network technology, wireless LAN is also changing people's lifestyle. Wireless network communication protocols usually use IEEE802.3 and 802.11. 802.3 is used for point-to-point mode, and 802.11 is used for point-to-multipoint mode. Wireless LANs can be implemented on the basis of ordinary LANs through wireless hubs, wireless access stations (APs), wireless bridges, wireless modems, and wireless network cards. Wireless LANs are most commonly used. The future research directions of wireless LANs mainly focus on such issues as security, mobile roaming, network management, and the relationship with other mobile communication systems such as 3G.
In the field of industrial automation, there are tens of thousands of sensors, detectors, computers, PLCs, card readers and other devices that need to be connected to each other to form a control network. Usually the communication interfaces provided by these devices are RS-232 or RS-485. . Wireless LAN devices use isolated signal converters to convert RS-232 serial port signals from industrial equipment to wireless LAN and Ethernet signals, conforming to IEEE 802.11b and IEEE 802.3 standards for wireless LANs, and supporting standard TCP/IP network communication. The agreement effectively expands the networking capabilities of industrial devices.
The combination of computer network technology, wireless technology, and smart sensor technology has created a new concept of "wireless technology-based networked smart sensors." This wireless technology-based, networked smart sensor enables industrial field data to be transmitted, published and shared directly over the network via wireless links. Wireless LAN technology can provide high-bandwidth wireless data links and flexible network topologies for communication between various intelligent field devices, mobile robots, and various automation devices in a factory environment, effectively remedying them in some special environments. The insufficiency of the wired network further improved the communication performance of the industrial control network.
VIII. Industrial control software is developing toward advanced control
Since its birth in the early 1980s, industrial control software has been in development for 20 years. As an application software, industrial control software is continuously developed with the rise of PCs. Industrial control software mainly includes human-machine interface software (HMI), PC-based control software, and production management software. At present, China has developed a set of application software, such as real-time monitoring software platform, advanced control software, and process optimization control software, with independent intellectual property rights, and has made breakthroughs in engineering and productization, which has broken the monopoly of foreign similar software applications. . Through the application of hundreds of companies (devices) in the chemical, petrochemical, papermaking and other industries, it has promoted the technological transformation of enterprises, increased the level of production process control and product quality, and created significant economic benefits for enterprises. In 2000, the National Science and Technology Research Project of the “Ninth Five-Year Plan†passed the “Acceptance of Large-scale Backbone Petrochemical Production System Control and Computer Application Technologyâ€.
As an important part of industrial control software, the development of human-machine interface configuration software in China has made great progress in recent years. The combination of software and hardware provides a relatively complete solution for the integration of measurement, control, and management. On this basis, industrial control software will evolve from the man-machine interface and basic strategy configuration to advanced control.
Advanced Process Control (APC) currently has no strict and uniform definition. Generally, the control algorithms based on mathematical models that must be implemented by computers are collectively referred to as advanced process control strategies. Such as:
* Adaptive Control;
* Predictive control;
* Robust control;
* Intelligent control (expert system, fuzzy control, neural network) and so on.
Because advanced control and optimization software can create enormous economic benefits, these software are also worth more. There are dozens of companies in the world that have introduced hundreds of advanced control and optimization software products, and have formed a powerful process industry application software industry worldwide. Therefore, it is of great significance to develop advanced control and optimization software with independent intellectual property rights in China, break the monopoly of foreign products, and replace imports.
In the future, industrial control software will continue to move toward standardization, networking, intelligence, and openness.
Conclusion
Industrial informatization refers to the collection of information, the transmission of information, the processing of information, and the comprehensive utilization of information through information infrastructure in the process of industrial production, management, and management. During the “10th Five-Year Plan†period, the country’s focus on the use of informatization to promote industrialization has three aspects: First, focusing on the application of electronic information technology, improving the automation of traditional production processes, the control of intelligence, and the level of management informatization; Focusing on the application of manufacturing technology, promoting high-quality and high-efficiency production in the manufacturing industry, and revitalizing the equipment manufacturing industry. Third, the key technologies and common technologies for transforming and upgrading key industries and their related supporting technologies, processes and equipment. There are two main goals for the implementation of high-tech industrialization in the country: First, develop high-tech, form emerging industries, and cultivate new growth points; Second, use advanced technology to transform and optimize traditional industries and improve the quality of economic growth.
As the vigorous development of industrial automation is an effective way and means to speed up the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, improve the overall quality of enterprises, improve the country’s overall national strength, adjust the industrial structure, and quickly invigorate large and medium-sized enterprises, the country will continue to automate high-tech industries through the implementation of a series of industrial processes. Specialization projects will use information to drive industrialization, promote the further development of industrial automation technology, strengthen technological innovation, realize industrialization, solve the deep problems facing the development of the national economy, further improve the overall quality of the national economy and comprehensive national strength, and achieve leapfrog development.