1 Control systems

1.1 Introduction The term automation is used to describe the automatic operation or
control of a process. In modem manufacturing there is an ever
increasing use of automation, e.g. automatically operating machinery,
perhaps in a production line with robots, which can be used to produce
components with virtually no human intervention. Also, in appliances
around the home and in the office there is an ever increasing use of
automation. Automation involves carrying out operations in the required
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sequence and controlling outputs to required values.

The following are some of the key historical points in the development
of automation, the first three being concerned with developments in the
organisation of manufacturing which permitted the development of
automated production:

Modern manufacturing began in England in the 18th century when

the use of water wheels and steam engines meant that it became
more efficient to organise work to take place in factories, rather than
it occurring in the home of a multitude of small workshops. The
impetus was thus provided for the development of machinery.
The development of powered machinery in the early 1900s meant
improved accuracy in the production of components so that instead
of making each individual component to fit a particular product,
components were fabricated in identical batches with an accuracy
wlfich ensured that they could fit any one of a batch of a product.
Think of the problem of a nut and bolt if each nut has to be
individually made so that it fitted the bolt and the advantages that
are gained by the accuracy of manufacturing nuts and bolts being
high enough for any of a batch of a nuts to fit a bolt.
The idea of production lines followed from this with Henry Ford, in
1909, developing them for the production of motor cars. In such a
line, the production process is broken up into a sequence of set tasks
with the potential for automating tasks and so developing an
automated production line.
In the 1920s developments occurred in the theoretical principles of
control systems and the use of feedback for exercising control. A
particular task of concern was the development of control systems to
steer ships and aircraft automatically.
Copyright 2002. Newnes.

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