Industrial PC Research Articles

Chronos: a NoSQL system on flash memory for industrial process data

Within Électricité de France (EDF) hydroelectric power stations, IGCBoxes are industrial mini PCs dedicated to industrial process data archiving. These equipments expose distinctive features, mainly on their storage system based exclusively on flash memory due to environmental constraints. This type of memory had notable consequences on data acquisition performance, with a substantial drop compared with hard disk drives. In this setting, we have designed Chronos, an open-source NoSQL system for sensor data management on flash memories. Chronos includes an efficient quasi-sequential write pattern along with an index management technique adapted for process data management. As a result, Chronos supports a higher velocity for inserted data, with acquisition rates improved by a factor of 20–54 over different solutions, therefore solving a practical bottleneck for EDF.

Entrepreneurial behavior during industry emergence: An unconventional study of discovery and creation in the early PC industry

Acting entrepreneurially in nascent industries is a complex endeavor characterized by uncertainty and ambiguity. Nevertheless, entirely new industries do emerge, often as a direct result of entrepreneurial behavior. We extend and apply discovery and creation approaches to study entrepreneurial behavior during industry emergence by means of qualitative analysis of a film about the personal computer (PC) industry℉s formative years. We find that discovery and creation behavior are fundamentally interrelated and share a common element: bricolage. Moreover, ideological activism is a major component of entrepreneurial behavior in a new industry℉s formative years during both creation and discovery processes. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Resistance Furnace Temperature Control System Based on OPC and MATLAB

This paper presents the application results of a fuzzy proportional–integral–derivative controller of temperature in an industrial resistance furnace. The challenges arise from the features of resistance furnaces such as non-linearity, strong inertia, large lag, and time-varying parameters. A fuzzy proportional–integral–derivative controller is adopted here to overcome these challenges. The hardware part of the control system is an ECS-700 distributed control system and an industrial PC, and the software part is built on Object Linking and Embedding for process control technology and MATLAB. The experimental results on an industrial furnace system show that the proposed fuzzy proportional–integral–derivative controller achieves better control performance with shorter setting time and smaller overshoot.

Can you trust your fridge?

The Internet of Things has been touted as many things. But what you haven't heard is that it could be your worst enemy. Yet all of these incidents have actually occurred, according to news reports. And it's likely that even more disturbing transgressions have been taking place unbeknownst to homeowners. For example, researchers have discovered that in some cases, they can hack the Internet of Things to intercept each document you print and divert it to a remote site, use your smart TV to bug your house, and even control the tramc light on the corner outside your home. The vulnerabilities lie all around you. An HP Research study reported that the average Internet of Things gadget has an astounding 25 security flaws, and 70 percent have at least one such vulnerability. Many of these problems may yield to solutions like those adopted by the personal computer industry decades ago. There are also some that require new approaches that take into account the vast scale and narrow profit margin of the emerging world of Internet augmented products.

Accurate Bolt Tightening Using Model-Free Fuzzy Control for Wind Turbine Hub Bearing Assembly

In the modern wind turbine industry, one of the core processes is the assembly of the bolt-nut connections of the hub, which requires tightening bolts and nuts to obtain well-distributed clamping force all over the hub. This force deals with nonlinear uncertainties due to the mechanical properties and it depends on the final torque and relative angular position of the bolt/nut connection. This paper handles the control problem of automated bolt tightening processes. To develop a controller, the process is divided into four stages, according to the mechanical characteristics of the bolt/nut connection: a Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC) with expert knowledge of tightening process and error detection capability is proposed. For each one of the four stages, an individual FLC is designed to address the highly non-linearity of the system and the error scenarios related to that stage, to promptly prevent and avoid mechanical damage. The FLC is implemented and real time executed on an industrial PC and finally validated. Experimental results show the performance of the controller to reach precise torque and angle levels as well as desired clamping force. The capability of error detection is also validated.

Design of Transverse Boom-Type Roadheader Remote Control System

The roadheader remote control system is proposed to protect operator away from the dust and the danger on working site, improve the operator's labor environment, reduce personal injury accidents, and enhance the security of mining operations. The cutting head and spade board position of transverse boom-type roadheader were analyzed. The mathematical models of cutting head vertical swing, cutting head gyration swing and spade board vertical swing were established. Geometric relationship between the angle and the stroke of hydraulic cylinder of cutting head and spade board were calculated. Finally, based on programmable logic controller (PLC) and industrial personal computer (IPC), the remote control system was designed and the automatic cutting method was proposed. The roadheader remote control system had been applied successfully in EBH132 roadheader. The system significantly enhances the efficiency and security of the main production.

Development of agricultural implement system based on machine vision and fuzzy control

To achieve accurate mechanical inter-rows weeding, an agricultural implement guidance system based on machine vision was designed. The guidance system consists of a color video camera, an industrial panel PC, a lateral displacement controller, a GPS receiver, a hydraulic system, and an agricultural implement. To improve the accuracy and reliability of the guidance system, the choice of color space, the method of guidance line detection, and the method of controlling the implement were investigated. First, considering the adverse effect of illumination variation on image processing, the HIS (hue, saturation, intensity) color model was used to process images, and a threshold algorithm based on the H component was used to produce grayscale images. Second, according to the characteristics of the crop rows in the image, a method of crop line identification based on linear scanning was proposed. To approximate the trend of a crop row in the image to a line, pixels at the bottom and top edges of the image were selected as two endpoints of the line. Candidate lines were created by moving the position of these endpoints. The line with the most target points was regarded as the crop line. Finally, fuzzy control was used to control the agricultural implement. This algorithm can effectively control the agricultural implement tracking the guidance line. Path tracing experiments were conducted at three different speeds of 0.6, 1.0 and 1.4m/s in the corn field on a sunny day. The maximum lateral errors were 4.5cm, 5.5cm and 6.8cm at the three speeds. The average lateral errors were less than 2.7cm for all speeds. The experimental results demonstrated that the guidance system successfully adapted to changes in natural light and had good dynamic performance at all speeds.

An Operational System for Estimating Road Traffic Information from Aerial Images

Given that ground stationary infrastructures for traffic monitoring are barely able to handle everyday traffic volumes, there is a risk that they could fail altogether in situations arising from mass events or disasters. In this work, we present an alternative approach for traffic monitoring during disaster and mass events, which is based on an airborne optical sensor system. With this system, optical image sequences are automatically examined on board an aircraft to estimate road traffic information, such as vehicle positions, velocities and driving directions. The traffic information, estimated in real time on board, is immediately downlinked to a ground station. The airborne sensor system consists of a three-head camera system, a real-time-capable GPS/INS unit, five industrial PCs and a downlink unit. The processing chain for automatic extraction of traffic information contains modules for the synchronization of image and navigation data streams, orthorectification and vehicle detection and tracking modules. The vehicle detector is based on a combination of AdaBoost and support vector machine classifiers. Vehicle tracking relies on shape-based matching operators. The processing chain is evaluated on a large number of image sequences recorded during several campaigns, and the data quality is compared to that obtained from induction loops. In summary, we can conclude that the achieved overall quality of the traffic data extracted by the airborne system is in the range of 68% and 81%. Thus, it is comparable to data obtained from stationary ground sensor networks.

Design of Real-Time Measurement and Control System of Clean-Energy Power Parameters

The real-time measurement and control of clean-energy power parameters provides a reliable platform for the performance test, a working state simulation of clean-energy power system and effective supports for the reasonable design of clean-energy power system. The whole measurement and control system is controlled by PLC and monitored by Kingview software. While mainly controlling the voltage and electric quantity of storage battery and motor speed, PLC is responsible for Modbus communication between the storage battery management system, the motor controller, the dynamometer controller and the industrial personal computer, Kingview is used for the real-time measurement and the controlling of system power parameters. The test shows that the measurement and control system is stable and reliable.

Research of Visual Inspection and Sorting System of Cigarette Carton Brand

To reduce error inspection rate of the brand inspection in enterprise logistics, this paper puts forward a inspection method which depends on template matching algorithm based on machine vision.This method identifies cigarette carton brand by image processing, first template matching, accurate template matching of real-time carton bar code, then sends message to industrial personal computer to does sorting operation. Practice has proved that the system is stable, fast, accurate to meet the site requirement.

Design and Implementation of an Embedded PLC System with Applied-Information Technology

To overcome the shortcomings of external PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) and soft PLC being widely employed in switch control of CNC machine tool, an embedded PLC system was developed by integrating AVR single chip ATMEGA169, PC bus technique and dual port RAM. Both hardware circuit and software of the PLC system were designed and implemented. The software of Industrial PC was developed by using ladder-diagram IDE (Integrated Design Environment) based on the platform of Borland C++ Builder. In this environment, it can fulfill edit, compilation and communication function of ladder-diagram file. It also can monitor and diagnose PLC running status. This developed embedded PLC system has the characteristics of compact structure, high communication and reliability. It can effectively satisfy real-time control requirements of CNC machine tool.

Information technology and partnership dynamic capabilities in international subcontracting relationships

Previous studies have noted the positive impacts of information technology (IT) investments on firm performance. The purpose of this paper is to show that IT investments also improve the joint performance of partners in a relational setting. We argue that IT investments enhance the partnership dynamic capability, which in turn, increases the partnership value. With a higher partnership value, the joint performance of the partners improves. Partnership dynamic capability refers to the ability of partners to coordinate actions in pursuit of market opportunities or in response to threats. Partnership dynamic capability plays the role of a catalyst in transforming the IT-related investments into partnership value which is the strategic value co-created by the partners and can only be exploited jointly by the partners. We test this argument in the international subcontracting business of the personal computer industry. The working hypotheses were developed by drawing on the resource-based view (RBV) and the dynamic capability perspective of the firm. Partnership dynamic capability is captured by three constructs in the empirical study: information exchange, relationship-specific knowledge (RSK) stores, and joint actions. The data, which were collected from 126 Taiwanese personal computer firms, substantiate the hypotheses.

M&A: The Incredible Shrinking U.S. PC Industry

The authors review key merger and acquisition (M&A) trends in the personal computer (PC) industry and identify future challenges. What has changed? Will the U.S. PC industry survive? Can the industry reinvent itself? © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Experimental Study of Compliant Mechanism Considering Thermal Effect

In this paper, an ultra-precision positioning stage is introduced. The finite element method is used to establish the theoretical model, and the strain test system of experiment is established. The system includes the static strain test and the dynamic strain test. The test system contains the software and hardware system. The software system includes the static strain measurement software of DH3816, the programmable constant temperature and humidity chamber control software TEMI300, and the dynamic strain test system developed from NI Labview. The hardware system contains industrial personal computer (IPC), piezoelectric (PZT) actuator, static strain gauge of DH3816, strain amplifier of YE1817, NI USB-6009 multifunction data acquisition card, strain gauge, programmable temperature and humidity chamber, and precision positioning stage. The experimental test is carried out to examine the theoretical analysis considering thermal effect. Experimental results and analytical results indicate that whether the stresses increase or decrease linearly or nonlinearly depend on the function of the temperature to the time during the transient response same as the stresses increase or decrease linearly during the steady response under uniform temperature change. The dynamic responses of platform are affected by the temperature change, and it is essential to consider thermal effect when analyzing compliant mechanisms.

The Kitchen Vehicle Pressure Autocontrol System Based on SC-UWB Technology of Internet Things

This research was carried out according to the actual needs of plateau kitchen vehicle. However, these military equipments have played important roles in the military exercises, earthquake relief, and other major activities, they does need urgent improvements in the using process. Among those problems to be solved, drift distortion of pressure cooker signal transmission on account of low temperature of high altitude, inability of achieving accurate control, and untimely feedback of service demand included. The pressure automatic control system of plateau kitchen vehicle which is based on Single Carrier Ultra Wide Band (UWB) wireless technology (SC-UWB), will completely solve the above problems, and the followings are innovations of this study: Firstly, Single-carrier ultra-wideband wireless transmission technology was used in this study, which was in accordance with Chinese Standard and based on chips produced by China. This would satisfy the needs of real-time transmission in pressure and temperature information under extreme environment, and solve technical problems such as signal integrity and communicational confidentiality, and this would also eliminate technical problems such as signal distortion, hysteresis, drift, high deviation repeatability of automatic control system of plateau kitchen vehicle in extreme environment. Secondly, intelligent sensor systems were connected to the Internet of things (IOT). To develop Industrial Personal Computer (IPC) according to the management system and daily use of this equipment and to lead the equipment to have node function of access to the Internet of things, would be the foundation of all kinds of beneficial exploration in the management of Internet of things, and also the guarantee of technology standard of Internet of things in military equipment of future. Then, the existing equipment can smoothly be switched in to avoid duplication of investment.

Embedded Control System with SCADA Modbus Network for Monitoring Heat Treating Furnace

In order to control heat treating furnace temperature and transfer real time data, an embedded control system has been built. The system’s hardware was mainly made up of microcontroller, analog, digital and RS485 interfaces. It has the ability of exchanging data with an industrial PC via SCADA Modbus network. According to the features of control process and the hardware’s performance, the system’s software was divided into Modbus task, control task, I/O scan task, panel task, and alarm task. The RTX51 Tiny was used as software kernel. By running in cooperative multitasking manner, the five tasks handle various functions of the system. Each of the five tasks is introduced. The task scheduling is explained. It is shown that the system can meet the requirements of process control and data acquisition. With the advantages of multitasking structure, simple hardware frame, reliable network communication and low cost, the design method we mentioned is valuable for developing embedded control systems.

New Generation of Mobile Platform of Service Robot for Motion along Vertical Walls

The paper sums up results achieved during in the last few years of the development and research of service robots aiming their use for service applications on vertically oriented walls with predominantly smooth contact surfaces having minimal altitude unevenesses within the range ± 5 mm. Two robot generations are described step by step, and both of them use the same mechanical principle of the patented system of motion. The system uses the intermittent motion when positions of the robot legs and body alternate cyclically, and the appropriate gripping force of a holding-down system is realized by vacuum. As compared with the first version, the current one allows legs to move independent in part. In that way it is possible to compensate better variations of parallelism between a contact plane of the robot holding-down system and a vertical wall. Moreover, the robot is provided with a rotary unit making possible a rotation on the axis going through the robot center and being perpendicular to the contact plane, which guarantees a change in the robot orientation in the plane. As for drives, very compact rotary actuating mechanisms (servo drives) are used, having a high ratio of power parameters in relation to weight and dimensions, combined with a control based on an industrial PC.

A novel methodology for non-linear system identification of battery cells used in non-road hybrid electric vehicles

An accurate state of charge (SoC) estimation of a traction battery in hybrid electric non-road vehicles, which possess higher dynamics and power densities than on-road vehicles, requires a precise battery cell terminal voltage model. This paper presents a novel methodology for non-linear system identification of battery cells to obtain precise battery models. The methodology comprises the architecture of local model networks (LMN) and optimal model based design of experiments (DoE). Three main novelties are proposed: 1) Optimal model based DoE, which aims to high dynamically excite the battery cells at load ranges frequently used in operation. 2) The integration of corresponding inputs in the LMN to regard the non-linearities SoC, relaxation, hysteresis as well as temperature effects. 3) Enhancements to the local linear model tree (LOLIMOT) construction algorithm, to achieve a physical appropriate interpretation of the LMN. The framework is applicable for different battery cell chemistries and different temperatures, and is real time capable, which is shown on an industrial PC. The accuracy of the obtained non-linear battery model is demonstrated on cells with different chemistries and temperatures. The results show significant improvement due to optimal experiment design and integration of the battery non-linearities within the LMN structure.

Design the PCI Bus Servo Control Card Based on the PCI9052

This article designs a servo control card based on PCI9052 for the motor control of large CNC cutting machine. The design contains the hardware design of circuit and the software design of drive. The hardware design used PCI9052 to realize the communication of the host and the PCI bus, and realized the internal logic control of data communication on hardware circuit of CPLD by Verilog HDL language. Devised the hardware system principle and PCB diagram, producted circuit board by Altium Designer 6.9, and and finally debugged successly. The software driver design analyzed the relationship between Linux kernel and the device driver, proposed the servo control card design process according to the structure of Linux device driver, completed the identification and communication to servo control card by Industrial PC. The analog, switch and pulse transmission integrated on the same circuit board is different from previous, and it obtained a stable application in a number of CNC equipments.

Dynamic product differentiation strategies: an examination of the interplay of firm and industry characteristics

Technologically dynamic industries are characterised by the availability of ample differentiation opportunities. Implementing an appropriate product differentiation strategy is a critical determinant of entrant success in such industries. Firms typically have to engage in two sequential decisions. They need to first decide whether to differentiate and if they decide to do so, they need to choose between a horizontal and a vertical differentiation strategy. Despite the growing literature on the consequences of product differentiation strategy, limited attention has been paid to ascertaining the determinants of these dynamic decisions. We suggest that a complex interplay of firm-level (firm size and pre-entry experience) and industry (technology regime) characteristics impacts the choice of differentiation strategies. Empirical tests using multinomial logit models on data obtained from a census of all entrants into the personal computer industry between 1974 and 1994 support our theory.