what is an industrial computer?

What is the difference between industrial computer and ordinary computer?

Industrial PC (IPC for short) mainly refers to a personal computer that is specially used in the industrial world and can be used as an industrial controller. At present, IPC has been widely used in communication, industrial control site, road and bridge toll collection, medical treatment, environmental protection and all aspects of people's life.

The basic performance and compatibility of industrial computers are almost the same as commercial personal computers of the same specification, but industrial computers have more protection measures, focusing on the stability of parts in different environments, such as beverage production line control, automobile production line control, etc. Stability is required in harsh environments, such as dust-proof, waterproof, anti-static, etc. Industrial computers do not require the highest performance at present, but only to meet the requirements of the system. It must meet the reliability requirements and stability in the industrial environment. Otherwise, if the computer crashes in the production line, it may cause serious losses. The standard values ​​required by the computer are required to meet strict specifications and expandability.

Industrial computer is an electronic computer designed according to the characteristics and requirements of industrial production. It is used in industrial production to realize various control purposes, production process and scheduling management automation to achieve high quality, real-time, high efficiency, low consumption, safety and reliability. , the purpose of reducing labor intensity and improving the working environment. It is an important branch of automated instruments and an important branch of electronic computers. It is mainly used for industrial process measurement, control, data acquisition and other work. Industrial sites generally have strong vibrations, a lot of dust, and high electromagnetic field force interference. Generally, factories operate continuously, that is, there is generally no rest during the year. Therefore, compared with ordinary computers, industrial computers have the following characteristics:

(1) High reliability. The industrial computer is usually used to control the uninterrupted production process, and it is not allowed to stop for maintenance during operation. Once a failure occurs, it will lead to quality accidents and even production accidents. Therefore, the industrial computer is required to have high reliability, that is to say, there must be many measures to improve safety and reliability to ensure that the mean time between failures (MTBF) reaches tens of thousands of hours, and at the same time, the fault repair time (MTTR) is shortened as much as possible. achieve high operating efficiency.

(2) Good real-time performance. The industrial computer controls and monitors the production process in real time, so it is required to respond to the changes of various parameters of the control object in real time. When the process parameters deviate or fail, the industrial control function can respond in time, and can alarm and process in real time.

(3) Strong environmental adaptability. The industrial site environment is harsh, and the electromagnetic interference is serious. The IPC power supply system is often interfered by the start and stop of heavy-load equipment. The grounding system is complex, and the common mode and series mode interference is large. Therefore, the industrial computer is required to have strong environmental adaptability, such as high requirements for temperature and humidity changes; it must have the ability to prevent dust, corrosion, and vibration and shock; it must have good electromagnetics.

(5) The system has good scalability. With the improvement of the factory automation level, the control scale is also expanding, so the industrial personal computer is required to have flexible scalability.

(6) System openness. The industrial computer is required to have an open architecture, that is to say, the host interface, network communication, software compatibility and upgrade, etc. abide by the open principle, so as to facilitate system expansion, connection of different types, and software portability and exchange.

(7) The control software package is powerful. The industrial control software package should have the functions of convenient J... . In addition, it must have rich control algorithms. In addition to the conventional PID (proportional, integral, differential) control algorithms, it should also have some advanced control algorithms, such as fuzzy control, neuron network, optimization, self-adaptation, self-tuning and other algorithms, and With online self-diagnosis function. A good control software package today often combines continuous control functions with intermittent control functions.

(8) The system communication function is strong. With serial communication, network communication functions. Due to the high real-time requirements, the communication network speed of the industrial computer is required to be high, and it conforms to the international standard communication protocol, such as EHD802.4, IEEE 802.3 protocol, etc. With the powerful communication function, the industrial computer can form a larger control system, such as DCS (Distributed Control System, distributed control system), CIMS (Co ton uter Integrated Manufacturing sentence, computer integrated manufacturing system) and so on.

(9) The backup measures are complete. Including power supply backup, memory information protection, manual/automatic operation backup, emergency switching device, etc.

(10) It has redundancy. In the occasions with higher reliability requirements, there must be dual-machine work and redundant systems, including control station, dual-operation station, dual-network communication, dual-power supply system, dual-power supply, etc.; dual-machine switching function, dual-machine monitoring software, etc. , to ensure long-term uninterrupted operation of the system.

(11) The system can monitor and reset itself. Today, watchdog circuits have become an integral part of industrial PC designs. It can quickly alarm when the system fails, and in the case of human intervention, the system can automatically resume operation.

(12) Software and hardware compatibility. It can use ISA, PCI and PICMG resources at the same time, and supports various operating systems, multiple programming languages, and multi-tasking operating systems, making full use of the software and hardware resources accumulated by commercial PCs.