New mobile HMI designs respond to user, device needs

摘要

HMI software should mix elements of web design and controls engineering to create effective operator interfaces for industrial displays and mobile devices of all sizes. As mobile devices are more commonly used to manage industrial operations, web-based options for human-machine interfaces (HMIs) continue to grow. Flexible operator interfaces based on HTML5 and JavaScript enable access from rugge-dized industrial tablets and consumer technologies, including wearables, smartphones and tablets from any manufacturer. Recent HMI software advances provide the ability to create responsive, web-based operator interfaces with multi-touch for intuitive operation. Although this software relies on information technology (IT) design standards, it also must be reliable from an industrial standpoint. In addition, these HMIs operate and monitor multi-vendor architectures that require special connectivity measures. For many years, engineers integrated HMI solely for control panels inside factories. When using mobile devices became a possibility, the interfaces, at first, were crude interpretations of screens with some alarms and notifications from the plant floor. Multi-touch functionality on an industrial display was a pipe dream.