Automation & electrification for cold rolling mill. - ABB has been appointed to provide electrification and automation systems for ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India’s (AM/NS India) advanced steel cold rolling mill (CRM) in Hazira, Gujarat (Ind). The contract at the flagship manufacturing plant comes through John Cockerill India Limited (JCIL), the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) for the project.

Versatile, accurate and stable load cells. - The Redex Group is extending the offer of load cells dedicated to the tension measurement for the markets where the company is already a supplier of reference, such as composites, wire & cable, converting, packaging, labelling, battery manufacturing.

PI Meeting Recap - PROFIBUS & PROFINET International (PI) recently held its annual meeting of all people involved with the organization. This includes the many Regional PI Associations (RPA), PI Competence Centers (PICC), PI Training Centers (PITC), and PI Test Labs (PITL) from around the world. Our gracious host this year was the PI Middle East RPA in the incredible city of Dubai, UAE.

Sustainable connectivity for IT infrastructure. - Harting offers for the first time offers an OCP-compliant AC connector with the Han® ORV3, which is also available as complete power shelf v3 rack cable assemblies. Shallower rack systems enable a more compact design for the entire infrastructure, meaning data centres can significantly increase their productivity within a given footprint. As a result, their solution supports the Open Compute Project’s goal of optimising efficiency in the construction and scaling of data centres.

IIoT Systems and Devices for a wide range of applications and industries. - Advantech has published a comprehensive overview of their edge-to-edge-cloud solutions in the 2023 edition of their Industrial Systems and Devices Star Product Guide. The free to download 28 page brochure is a complete guide to their market leading IIoT product range, providing customers with everything they need to know to stay ahead of the curve with IIoT deployment; from IIoT hardware to innovative software for intelligent factories to industrial automation and their IoTMart/AOnline direct sales channels.

What is included in Distributed Control System (DCS)? - A typical distributed control system (DCS) consists of functionally and/or spatially distributed digital controllers capable of executing from 1 to 256 or more regulatory control loops in one controller "box." The sensor I/O can be integral with the controller or located remotely via a field network. Controllers currently available have extensive computational capabilities and, in addition to continuous control (e.g., PID), generally can also perform logic and sequence control. (ARC Advisory)

DC energy meter for EVs. - LEM will use PCIM 2023 to give the global e-mobility market advance notice of its new DC energy meter for DC wallbox chargers of electric vehicles (EVs). Offering compliance to the latest metrology regulations, the DCBM 100 energy meter will be introduced to the EU market in Q3 this year.

A new generation of robust, ultra-small tactile switches. - The extremely compact RAFI micro-switches measure just 5.1 x 6.4 x 3.85 mm. Their optimized sealing system ensures that they achieve IP67 degree of protection and can therefore be installed on PCBs protected by casting, painting, or nanocoating. The extreme temperature resistance from -40°C to +125°C meets current automotive industry standards.

Mobile pressure measurement. - The model CPG1200 digital pressure gauge from WIKA, enables convenient and flexible setting of operating pressures, readjusting pressure switches and carrying out pressure monitoring - for example leak testing during transport.

Motion control from from 4 to 64 axes. - Delta has launched the AX-304EL, AX-316E, and AX-364EL motion controllers to complement the existing AX-308E motion controller. AX-3 series motion controllers offer a CODESYS development environment to enable intelligent industrial automation applications. Compatibility with Delta AS Series IO products and support for major industrial communication protocols including EtherCAT and MODBUS.

To guarantee valve actuator performance. - Rotork Controls has established a global reputation for robust and reliable valve actuators, operating in some of the world’s most demanding and critical applications. Thorough testing of the motors used in the actuators is one of the keys to this assured performance, with TorqSense transducers from Sensor Technology playing a vital role in the test process.

Four analytics areas for manufacturers to emphasize. - Data is today’s currency; however, people are still trying to figure out how to accumulate this new type of capital. Many manufacturers and industrial facilities have reams and reams of raw data, but still struggle to determine how to make the best use of it. This is a common struggle among companies that are looking to take the first steps of analytics. (Control Engineering)

Adrian Ellam has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of Invertek Drives Ltd.

Drug manufacturing and storage protection. - The quality of manufactured or processed products at cleanroom facilities are protected by applicable good manufacturing practices (GMP) that specify stringent environmental monitoring requirements. The Swedish drug manufacturer APL (Apotek Produktion & Laboratorier) recently installed Vaisala's viewLinc Continuous Monitoring system at its manufacturing plant, and has been delighted with the reliability and peace of mind that the system delivers.

Low contact resistance relays. - Omron Electronic Components Europe has expanded its high-power switching capability with the addition of a low contact resistance model for the successful 2 pole contact type G7L-2A-X series relays. With a 6.0mm contact gap, the new G7L-2A-X-SI relay provides low contact resistance of maximum 10mΩ and a rated load of 30A at 600V DC, or 25A at 1000V DC. The G7L-X series conforms to British and IEC solar inverter standards, as well as applicable UL and VDE electrical standards.

Robots saving the rainforest. - A pilot project between ABB Robotics and US non-profit organization Junglekeepers is demonstrating the role Cloud technology can play in making reforestation faster, more efficient and scalable.

Safe, convenient and obvious! - The Managing Director of Signal Group, James Clements believes that it should be possible to remove the screens of all gas analysers, and connect with them wirelessly. “It no longer makes sense to fix the screen into the analyser,” he explains. “Everyone is completely comfortable with portable keypads and screens, and analysers are often in inconvenient or even unsafe locations, so we have designed detachable screens into all of our latest instruments.

What Is MES, and why invest in it? - Whilst MES has established itself with some of the major manufacturers, there’s still a large number of businesses that could stand to benefit from the solution but simply don’t have enough understanding about the tangible benefits it can bring to their operation. (Automation.com)

Papers on CAN sought! - The program committee of the 18th international CAN Conference (iCC) chaired by Holger Zeltwanger, CiA Managing Director, is now seeking papers. The conference organized by the nonprofit CAN in Automation (CiA) association will take place in Baden-Baden, (D May 14 and 15, 2024).

Managing flood and coastal risk. - The British Environment Agency has awarded a four-year contract to Meteor Communications to significantly expand their estate of low-power remote image collection cameras. Installed at strategic locations, the cameras will provide critically important information on the status of water management assets involved in reducing flood and coastal risk.

EV charging. - LEM has announced that its DCBM 400/600 direct current billing meter is the first of its kind to be certified in France by Laboratoire national de métrologie et d'essais (LNE), the country’s national laboratory for metrology and testing.

Lab to supporting manufacturing industries with end-to-end industrial IoT solutions. - ABB and China Telecom have unveiled a joint digitalization and industrial IoT laboratory in Hangzhou (CN). The collaboration between ABB Measurement & Analytics China Technology Center and China Telecom's Internet of Things subsidiary E Surfing IoT will focus on developing end-to-end industrial IoT solutions for industrial companies based in China.

Housing for hazardous areas. - AMETEK Land has increased its support for customer applications in hazardous areas with two new housing enclosures. Their new EXSH1 flameproof housings have been developed for use with the EX SPOT pyrometer range and LWIR-640 thermal imager and are approved for operation in hazardous areas.

Process monitor is multichannell. - The launch of the Michell Multi-Channel Process Monitor sees the welcome expansion of the process analyzer range. The MCPM provides up to 6 independent measurement channels with any combination of moisture in gas, moisture in liquids or oxygen sensors to give the user maximum flexibility at lower per-channel cost.

Long-distance, full vector S-parameter measurements. - The ShockLine™ ME7869A distributed modular 2-port vector network analyzers (VNAs) has been introduced by Anritsu. This instrument can conduct long-distance full vector S-parameter measurements over wide distances of up to 100 meters. Three models – operating up to 8 GHz, 20 GHz, and 43.5 GHz, respectively – provide unprecedented cost-efficiency, flexibility, and ease-of-use to a variety of existing and emerging commercial and military antenna design applications.

Powerful industrial Edge AI platform. - Impulse Embedded have introduced the new Nuvo-10208GC as the latest member of the industrial Edge GPU family of computers from the industry-leading provider of rugged embedded systems Neousys. These specially designed systems can support up to two of the latest Ada Lovelace generation NVIDIA RTX 4080 graphics cards, offering exceptional compute performance for GPU-accelerated Edge AI applications such as autonomous driving, vision inspection, and intelligent video analytics.

Point-and-Shoot thermography. - Teledyne FLIR has announced the FLIR E8 Pro, providing a larger 3.5-inch touchscreen with FLIR Ignite Cloud connectivity within the same pistol-grip form factor as legacy E8 series thermal cameras. Through the touchscreen, users can share captured images with colleagues, partners, and clients over Wi-Fi, including with on-screen annotations to highlight findings. Images can then be loaded straight to the FLIR Ignite Cloud for improved efficiency and a smoother workflow.

Compact gas analyser. - Servomex's SERVOTOUGH Laser 3 Plus range delivers fast, accurate gas analysis in a light, compact design. The analyzer's pioneering compact design occupies a footprint one-tenth the size of many competitor products, providing instant benefits for installation and flexibility.

Recognising the danger of air pollution. - Clean Air Day 2023 will take place on Thursday 15th June in Britain as a reminder that air pollution causes up to 36,000 deaths every year. This year it takes place just three weeks after the Westminster Government's Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) consultation, which examined key issues surrounding air quality strategy in England. "We were very pleased to respond to the consultation," explains Airly CEO Wiktor Warchalowski. "Our submissions addressed a number of key issues such as the paucity of local authority dense monitoring networks to identify air quality hotspots and trends when designing and validating interventions."

Quality Vision International (QVI®) has announced that Keith E. Polidor has been named as President and Chief Executive Officer.

Product of the Year. - Winners of the 36th annual Control Engineering Product of the Year awards include industrial artificial intelligence software, a fanless and rugged embedded computer optimized for edge computing and a terminal block that accommodates direct insertion of all conductor types, among other notable technologies.

Analog Signal Generator with higher frequency range. - The Rubidium™ high-performance analog signal generator family has been expanded by Anritsu, introducing the MG36271A, This now covers 9 kHz to 70 GHz to meet the needs of emerging extremely high frequency designs. With industry-best signal purity, output power, and frequency stability, the MG36271A fills a void in the Q/V frequency band, providing significant benefits to aerospace and defense, test and measurement, communications, components, and research applications.

Photo ionisation detection(PID) sensors nomination. - ION Science's MiniPID 2 sensor has been nominated in the sensor category of the 2023 Instrumentation Excellence Awards. Voting is invited at the Awards website (Voting closes 11th Aug 2023).

Understanding concepts for network security. - In today's interconnected world, network security is of utmost importance. It is crucial to understand key concepts like IP firewall settings, port forwarding, network address translation (NAT), and gateway address settings to safeguard systems and data. Contemporary Controls' Skorpion Series of IP routers provide access to these features in an easy to configure webpage format.

The Future of Work in Manufacturing. - The manufacturing workforce has been dealing with and absorbing modern technology ever since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Without question technology will drive the workforce of the future. (ARC Advisory)

Industrial managed switch - what is it? - In this article Henry Martel, Field Applications Engineer, Antaira Technologies identify the attributes of a high-quality industrial managed switch. Before that it is necessary first to clarify what makes an environment "industrial".

Emerging sensor types for embedded vision. - Anyone who has used a 'smart lens' app on their smartphone is familiar with machine vision. Rather than simply reproducing and storing a picture for later viewing, machine vision applies an image processing algorithm to obtain additional insight, such as locating edges or object identification. While few would regard a 'smart lens' app as essential, machine vision is a critical component of many industrial processes, such as material sorting and quality control. It is also crucial for ADAS (advanced driver assistance systems) and, ultimately, autonomous vehicles. (Dr Matthew Dyson, IDTechEx)

Nine sensor variants cover both common and exotic gases. - A new compact new sensor format for portable devices has been launched by Alphasense. The smaller, thinner, and lighter H-Series sensor is compatible with 1-Series sensors from other manufacturers and is available for 9 target gases. The introduction of the H-series from Alphasense gives OEMs greater flexibility in instrument design and increased choice in sensor selection.

How open process automation will shape the future of pump control. - Industry 4.0 holds the promise of optimal performance, improved reliability and cost savings in the operation of automated systems, including multi-pump systems used in municipal water and wastewater systems. Those benefits cannot be fully realized using proprietary legacy control platforms. Open platforms enable Industry 4.0 by facilitating the integration and interoperability of diverse systems and devices and providing a foundation for collaboration and innovation. (Control Engineering)

Thermal imager for harsh industrial and environmental conditions. - Providing continuous and reliable temperature measurements in harsh industrial and environmental conditions, the LWIR-640 long-wavelength thermal imager delivers a full temperature measurement range of -20 to 1000 °C (32 to 1832 °F) in three ranges. It also offers a choice of different optics and field of view (FOV) options.

PLC controllers. - Delta is introducing the compact, mid-range AX-300N and AX-324N PLC controllers. These AX-3 series controllers offer a CODESYS development environment to enable intelligent industrial automation applications. Compatibility with Delta AS Series IO products and support for a broad range of industrial communication protocols including PLCopen v1.0 function blocks, Ethernet/IP, and OPC UA server ensure compatibility across a wide range of automation applications such as packaging, food and beverages, ceramics, textiles, and energy.

Wireless test set. - The Universal Wireless Test Set MT8870A/MT8872A, just announced by the Anritsu Corporation, supports Wi-Fi 7 TRX tests by software options of the WLAN 802.11be TX Measurement MX887034A and WLAN 802.11be Waveforms MV887034A. The set has excellent test features for manufacturing inspection of various wireless communications equipment, modules, etc., while also supporting all prior Wi-Fi TRX test standards (IEEE 802.11b/g/a/n/ac/ax).

Digital and control system for steel mill. - ArcelorMittal Construction has awarded ABB a contract to deploy solutions specifically designed for metals processing at its cold rolling mill in Contrisson (F), as part of a modernization project. The solutions, which include ABB Ability™ Manufacturing Operations Management for metals (MOM4Metals), Roll-Gap (RGC) and Automatic Gauge Control (AGC), will help the world's largest steel producer to bring productivity to a new level, improve quality and performance.