SERVICES IN INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION AND CONTROL

Automation engineer in the industry, Bruno is working almost exclusively for factory automation and some other industrial process controls.

He suggests here some resources in automation, and some sources of informations which concern the technology in factory automation, in control techniques, in industrial communication networks, in machine vision and more.

While browsing, you can read about the following :

• The services in engineering and subcontracting in industrial automation and control delivered by a self-employed automation engineer.
  • Design, software implementation, installation and documentation of programmable automated systems, and ( obviously ) PLC programming.
  • Special machines automation and machines control, process automation and process control, factory automation and more.
  • Execution on programmable logic controllers ( PLC ) and man machine interfaces ( MMI ), in instrumentation, in process control, in motion control, in industrial networking and more, worldwide.
• A short summary about his experience as a freelance control engineer, since 1999.

  ---

• A directory of resources in some techniques and technologies used in automation.
  • You will find there sources of technical informations about technologies used in automated control, in instrumentation, in networking ( field buses, ethernet, control buses, devices networks, basics in networking etc ), in machine vision and in image processing, in robotics, in motion control and more.
  • You will also find links towards the technical documentation provided by some automation devices manufacturers or suppliers, and links towards some automation and instrumentation specialized websites providing many informations ( such as universities, manufacturers and many more ).

  ---

• A directory of resources dedicated to factory automation, where you can find :
  • The introduction of some industrial subcontractors involved in factory automation, specialists in automation, in electricity and in maintenance, which are all freelancers or very small enterprises SME.
  • A list of professional organizations and of professional associations ( such as standardization organization, automation and robotics manufacturers associations, automation engineers clubs and more ).
  • A list of professional magazines specialized in industrial automation, in robotics and in instrumentation, with links towards calendars of professional fairs in automation and around.
  • Introduction of control engineers looking for job, practical training or apprenticeship contract, and introduction of some automation companies which are hiring.

A good browsing to all the automation engineers coming here !

Bonjour ! À moins que ce ne soit votre choix, il semble que vous soyez arrivé sur www.bh-automation.com par inadvertance.

Si tel est le cas, je vous suggère de visiter www.bh-automation.fr - Automaticien indépendant, prestataire de services en automatisme industriel ( soit approximativement Automation and control technician freelance providing industrial services en anglais ).

Vous y trouverez la présentation d'un automaticien indépendant et ses services en automatisme industriel.

Vous y découvrirez également tout un ensemble de ressources relatives à l'automatisation industrielle.

Vous accéderez à des ressources techniques sur les technologies mises en services en automatisme, en instrumentation, en réseaux industriels de communication, en vision industrielle ou en robotique par exemple, à des sous-traitants industriels ( automaticiens, électriciens, roboticiens ) ainsi qu'à des offres et demandes d'emplois d'automaticiens.

« PROVIEW » is more than an open source PLC software : it is a complete and professional open source process control system including PLC, MMI, SCADA, and real time data base running on Linux over different hardware platforms ( Industrial PC, RaspberryPi, Android smart phones and so on ).

Powerful and versatile, it can control your factories, your production lines or the automated machines you build at low cost.

Proview can be useful for cheap prototyping, either a machine or new features for production, for testing and validating new devices at the laboratory or at the workshop, leading to the lowest investment you can consider.

« Proview » is published freely by the metallurgic Swedish company SSAB Oxelösund, which uses « Proview » to drive its own production lines.

Instruments are the senses of a control system.

While industrial context offers a lot of constraints and perturbations, it is important to know how information is measured, in order to get the most robust and the most efficient signals.

Here is a presentation of the basic concepts used in instrumentation, in measurement and in signal processing.

You will also find resources of informations about sensors technologies, about measurement technologies and about some communication interfaces dedicated to instruments.

Then, you will be introduced to some free and open source signal processing software.

Basically, a HART modem is an interface used to exchange data between a terminal and instrumentation devices over a current loop, according to the HART standard ( HART means « Highway Addressable Remote Transducer Protocol » ).

This page explains how it works, how the 4-20 mA signal is modulated, how to connect a PC to a HART transmitter, what is the basic cabling, with an example of electrical drawing.

A « virtual serial port » is a software or a driver which emulates a serial COM port ( RS 232, USB etc ) and which redirects the data towards an interface using a different communication technology.

A didactic example shows in particular how to operate the technique of « virtual serial port over IP » in order to exchange data between two remote RS232 connections, and how it can be easy and profitable.

The last item in this folder is the introduction of a list of control system security alerts, updated as soon as a weakness has been detected.

This list is maintained by a North American governmental organization ( ICS-CERT ) and concerns exclusively the industrial control systems.

Image processing is more and more used in the industry in order to check products, to control operations, motion or robots for instance.

This folder presents some related technical resources and introduces the basic knowledge needed in vision computing ( what is a digital image, image analysis, measurements, operators, edge detection ), in industrial machine vision ( pattern recognition, lighting, algorithms ), and in colour-metering, with an introduction to some dedicated standards such as « Genicam ».

IO-link is a communication interface especially designed for the sensors and actuators at the lowest field level.

It allows to communicate easily with smart devices, adding new and well adapted functionalities for operating, installing and maintenance.

Thus, it is neither a field bus nor a sensor and actuator network, but it works over the most widespread industrial network, filling a gap where they find their limits.

Arcnet is a deterministic embedded local network which was very popular. It was the base for many industrial digital communication networks all around the world.

You will discover here all about its specifications, its protocol, its features and why it was so widespread.

This page presents the basic of the technologies used in robotics, economic trends, and some international projects in development and research.

The technology basics section lists and resumes some educational resources ( websites, documents ) where you can find informations about geometry, trajectories, robot programming, dynamics and so on, plus useful informations about parallel mechanisms.