Data exists everywhere. How do robots leverage that data via the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)? With robotics playing such a pivotal role in the future of discrete manufacturing, we asked a seasoned panel of industry experts for their insights and predictions on the role of robots.
Q:The IIoT promises to facilitate communication between equipment everywhere. Examples of 24/7 autonomous plants exist, but will the IIoT eventually enable robots to modify engineering capacity at facilities to meet real-time production demands?
Garrett Place: The ability to modify the engineering capacity requires both data and intelligent algorithms. The good news is that most of the data already exists from the high-level controllers all the way down to the simple on/off sensors. The seamless collection of this data has been the challenge to date. This challenge, however, is being overcome through the proliferation of smarter sensors—better microprocessors—and easy methods for data collection, such as I/O-Link. Both of these items allow the data to be easily collected and evaluated by intelligent algorithms. The result is a smarter robot with the ability to adapt to differing business requirements on the fly.
Protecting electrical controls and equipment within food and beverage plants presents unique challenges due to the sanitation requirements of the hygienic environment.
