Category:Automation

Background

Cybernetics group team with their robot TIOSS on Zagreb ETH university, 1962. Branimir Makanec is pictured directly to the right of the robot

Automation is the use of information technologies and control systems to reduce the need for human labor in the production of goods and services. Automation is one step beyond simple mechanization within industrialization; mechanization provided human laborers with machinery to assist them with various tasks. Automation greatly decreases, and in some cases, completely eliminates the need for a human presence.

Automation plays an increasingly important role in the global economy and in our daily lives. Engineers strive to combine automated devices with mathematical and organizational tools to create complex systems for a rapidly expanding range of applications and human activities. Active since 1984, the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society established a major archival journal on Automation Science and Engineering to publish the abstractions, algorithms, theory, methodologies, models, systems, and case studies that can be applied across industries to significantly advance efficiency, quality, productivity, and reliability for society.

Subcategories

• Automation applications - Practical applications of automation, such as automated highways or office uses.
• Automatic generation control - or AGC, is a system used to maintain the scheduled frequency of power flows by adjusting the mechanical power input to generators
• Behavioral science - The interdisciplinary study of human and animal behavior, including topics that deal with cognition and psychology.
• Control design & engineering - Topics pertaining to the design and engineering of control systems
• Control equipment - Various equipment used in control systems, such as actuators, microcontrollers, servosystems and switchgear.
• Control methods - Methods for implementing control systems, such as digital, radio, and sensorless control.
• Control systems - Types of different control systems, such as moisture, pressure, temperature and traffic control.
• Control theory - An interdisciplinary branch of engineering and mathematics that deals with dynamic systems and the use of controllers to manipulate inputs for a desired output
• Cybernetics - Cybernetics encompasses the development of systems engineering technology including problem definition methods, modeling, and simulation, methods of system experimentation, human factors engineering, data and methods, systems design techniques and test and evaluation methods.
• Design automation - Software which aids in the design of electronics such as integrated circuits.
• Ergonomics - Ergonomics is the science of modifying the real world, such as a work environment, to suit the needs of a user.
• Feedback - Feedback describes the situations where output from a certain event will influence said event in the present or future. Topics in this category describe various feedback loops and circuits.
• Fluidics & fluid flow control - Fluidics describes the use of liquids to perform in a similar fashion to electronic circuits.
• Identification of persons - Machine identification of a person is large field of many systems, and can include various biometric and speech recognition methods.
• Man machine systems - Man machine systems describe a set of interactive systems where human and machine are integrated together.
• Optical control - Optical control describes various control systems used to implement lighting control.
• Robots - Robots are machines which are guided by programming and are able to perform tasks independent of human operators. Various aspects of robotics, such as humanoid and service robots are included in this subcategory.
• User interfaces - User interfaces describe the ways in which a human can interface with a machine, such as through graphical user interfaces (GUIs) or audio user interfaces.
• Variable control - Variable control encompasses any non-linear control mechanisms.