The IoT of Automation - A Totally New Way to Look at Control and Automation in the Process Industries

摘要

When it comes to process control and automation, how should we approach "IoT"? Over the decades, the process control industry has tended to ignore "the field", mostly because it seemed so simple, and never an area of interest or concern. We've instead tended to focus on "the computer" that sits above sensing and measurement. And, a "valve" is even further removed from our collective psyches. "Control systems are just a computer, after all..." and we tend to think of them just like any other computer. But, a control system without field devices is nothing but "a brain in ajar". In many ways, we've even forgotten about control itself in our preoccupation with "computers". If the industrial "Internet of Things" is pushing digital technologies to the extremities of the process, then this will mean re-emphasizing the field through all field devices, not just those involved in control and automation today. This paper looks at what that will mean.