Industrial PC

An industrial PC ( IPC short ) is a computer that is used in industry for tasks. In a narrower sense it is about computers that are similar to an IBM - compatible personal computer and can be operated in particular with software for such devices.

Typical areas are process visualization, robotics, industrial automation, test and test benches for industry or security applications, and quality assurance. An industrial computer must meet specific requirements in relation to the equipment for offices ( office PC ) and is designed to be particularly robust in general, for example, to environmental effects or electromagnetic interference and broadly to fail-safe.

Conventionally designed PCs have due to the mass production of many advantages, for example: high degree of standardization - both hardware and software -, flexibility, wide range of peripherals and application software, low price. This led to the desire to use them also for automation. Due to the high flexibility, a PC can be used for the operation, programming, visualization, long-term archiving and simulation of processes and combine in addition to conventional industrial controllers or PLCs.

Requirements

Hardware Requirements

A general classification of the various requirements specified by the protection.

Harsh environment

In an industrial environment, ie in manufacturing or even in the open air, the electronics against external influences such as dust, dirt, extreme temperatures and moisture (IP 64 ) must be protected. This is achieved mainly through customized, high-density housing and special filters in the cooling fans. Similarly, all connections shall be made as robust and sealed to the outside.

For even greater influences the electronics may need to be hermetically sealed, so that one has to switch on the processor cooling instead of fans with fresh air from the outside trained to closed systems with heat pipes and similar elements and, for example as a heat sink outer walls of the housing (ie, passive cooling).

If the environment produces strong electromagnetic interference (EMC ), the system must be shielded against. This also leads to specially electrically sealed enclosures and connectors, possibly with additional suppressors in leads.

Produces the environment extreme mechanical shock or vibration, housing and connectors must be re-exported appropriately robust. In addition, it may be necessary to withhold as much as possible to moving mechanical components, especially for fans and hard disks. As above, you can replace the fan by passive cooling systems; a hard drive recently by a Solid State Disk

Keyboards are also mechanically quite sensitive. They are, therefore, often replaced by the touch screen, also substituting the mouse with the same, wherein the application software only needs to be slightly adjusted. See also in Panel PC.

Sensitive environment

Conversely, it may also happen that the environment itself is particularly sensitive to electromagnetic or mechanical interference, for example in special measuring equipment. Here especially well-shielded case and connectors are similar to the above used only with the aim not to allow the disturbances penetrate to the outside.

When the environment is sensitive to mechanical shock or vibration, must be resorted to fan and hard drive -less variants above.

In some areas ( eg chemical industry), please also note still subject to specific regulations (eg explosion ), which require special encapsulation of IPC chassis.

Energy intake

Thus, the environment is not disturbed by increased heat development of the electronics, must be paid to particularly high- saving design if necessary. For this approach uses techniques back to how it is used in notebooks and laptops, so that energy consumption can be reduced by about half.

A lack of space

In some applications, the whole electronics must be housed in an extremely small space. For this example, there are complete PCs for DIN rail mounting and housing, which otherwise are used for embedded systems.

Reliability

From an industrially used computer with high service life with no software or hardware failure can be expected. On the hardware side, robust components are accordingly used in software is often used to specifically optimized Linux distributions.

Maintenance

Many IPC operators place great emphasis on ease of maintenance and prefer systems with easier accessibility and the least possible number of wearing parts ( eg fans ). Thus, in current systems, hard disks are interchangeable within seconds. In addition, the supplier is then used to select whether he can ensure long-term availability of equipment and spare parts. For the IPC user, the large numbers - such as in an assembly line - use with mostly identical software, it is important to still get the same motherboard type with the same chipset, even after several years, because often a different chipset a new memory image ( Image ) requires due to other device drivers. The rapid shift to ever more powerful systems, the manufacturer of the IPC therefore need a larger storage requirements well as discontinued products operate as a manufacturer of conventional PC.

Software Requirements

General information on the software

Common requirements are:

• Long service life without software error;
• Processing of process data in real time;
• Integration of the process peripherals.

There are two versions, if an industrial PC is used as an automation device:

Operating Systems

Since the hardware is related to the standard personal computers in terms of structure, the popular operating systems such as Microsoft Windows and Linux can be used. The big advantage is that you can draw on a broad foundation of available software solutions and development tools. In particular, in Linux there is also the possibility, thanks to the open- source nature introduce their own modifications and optimizations that can also customize the operating system level to the operational area.

The hardware of an industrial PC usually is different from a conventional personal computer. Often enough a much lower performance because the control of industrial machinery does not require high-performance processors. In the field of process visualization, however, are quite powerful processors and graphics solutions, in particular multi-screen systems used.

Some companies produce IPCs with a modular structure. This means that conventional logic board ( mother board ) through a backplane ( backplane ) and a slot CPU is replaced. An advantage is that the IPC is thereby obtained in a number of different variations. In particular, the use of a larger number of expansion cards for controlling peripheral devices as standard on motherboards is possible. Conventional motherboards have, for example, often only four to six PCI slots on where IPCs are appropriate Bridges ten or more possible also can, when required, plug-in cards for the ISA bus are supported.

On the slot CPU are all components that can be found on a motherboard as well. There are there among other things, at least one processor socket, and a slot for memory, connectors for hard disks and other drives, usually a VGA chip and at least one network controller.

The bus board is an extension of the slot CPU. On this the buses are running. The maximum number is usually 20 slots and can be matched by the variety of different backplanes to meet specific customer requirements. The most common buses for slot CPUs are PICMG 1.0 (PCI / ISA ), PCISA or PCI Express (PICMG 1.3).

The case of an industrial PC is usually designed for installation in a 19 -inch cabinet. Furthermore, there are still Box PC - compact and rugged industrial PC for general use (eg in the control cabinet, control panel, etc.) - and Panel PCs - rugged industrial PC with displays.

The more elaborate design, special requirements (such as extended temperature range), the higher quality materials, such as the fulfillment of many approvals, guidelines and standards, the price of an industrial PC is higher than that of an ordinary personal computer in the office area.

Related areas

If compatibility with personal computers plays a decisive role, the hardware can be optimized even more targeted to the specific purpose out. Again you can use the software side, for example, nor Linux variants, but which are in turn then highly adapted to the task.

In most cases, it amounts to the solutions that are much more compact and smaller than a fully equipped industrial PC, then one speaks of Embedded PCs or embedded systems.