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the factory. And as in many automated
factories, the components need to
work in harsh, fan-less environments
at the edge of the manufacturing
floor where real-time decisions can be
made. As a result, there is a continued
need to shrink the PLC footprint and
reduce the amount of heat dissipated
by the components.
A new class of silicon products is
needed to support the demands of
Industry 5.0 and its self-aware digital
factories. A key criterion of these
new products will be the ability to
self-adjust its parameters in order to
deliver a flexible I/O solution. Imagine
that—silicon solutions that can make
configuration choices on-the-fly! In
addition, processors will need to be
more powerful to run the algorithms.
Power ICs must continue to strive to
achieve higher efficiencies to reduce
power dissipation and provide the
ability to offer a higher level of density.
This could, in turn, yield very compact,
integrated isolated power modules.
Analog I/O products need to be
increasingly precise, while digital I/O
products must operate at increasingly
high speeds in order to deliver
information to the microprocessor
faster. Everything will need to be
smaller, more power efficient, and
more robust to withstand the harsh
electrical and thermal environment
that marks the automated factory (or
even utility plants and the like).
Pathways Toward the
Self-Aware Digital Factory
For the past several years, Maxim has
worked to create pathways for design
engineers to realize their Industry
4.0 goals. At electronica 2014, the
company demonstrated its Micro PLC
platform, consisting of more than
75 ICs that work together to deliver
10x smaller size and more than 50%
power savings compared to a typical
PLC from that year. Two years later,
Maxim brought to electronica 2016
the Pocket IO development platform,
which enables design engineers to
create, prototype, and fine-tune
industrial control systems. The
platform provides analog and digital
I/O capability, motion control, and
IO-Link intelligent sensor technology,
reducing the PLC footprint to just under
10 cubic inches with a 30% power
reduction compared to the previous
platform. While Pocket IO continued
the momentum of shrinking form
factor, it also demonstrated a flexible
manufacturing capability allowing
dynamic, on-the-fly adjustment of the
manufacturing line.
Then, at electronica 2018, Maxim
offered another look at the latest
technologies enabling the self-
aware digital factory. The company
demonstrated the Go-IO reference
design (MAXREFDES212), which is a
next-generation industrial IO solution
that increases productivity, furthers
adaptive manufacturing, and provides
machine-level health and status
information for making critical, real-
time decisions. Go-IO, which packs 17
configurable IOs in a space one-half
the size of a credit card, unleashes
the full power of the IIoT, enabling
productivity-enhancing self-diagnostic
capabilities in automated factory
subsystems, thus driving intelligence
to the edge.
As with autonomous cars, the
deployment of autonomous robotics in
industrial environments would need to
be done in a measured way to ensure
that the equipment can be trusted
to make the right decisions. After
all, it’s an inconvenience if a robot
picks and packs the wrong item for a
shipment. But the repercussions could
be much more harmful if the wrong
decision is made on, say, an oil rig or
a nuclear power plant. The immediate
challenge is to achieve a higher level
of performance in which AI and
decision-making are done in real-time
at the edge of the manufacturing line,
where equipment can be monitored
and actions taken to improve
environmental and human safety.
Industry 5.0 promises to continue
the efficiency and productivity
momentum, while bringing human
workers new opportunities behind the
machines.
Read To Lead
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