Radwell International’s Blog

Edge controllers can provide advantages in many applications where traditional industrial controllers have been used. For commercial and industrial computing products, software and hardware development progress proceeds in tandem, with the lead alternating. Sometimes the software complexity and features increase in a way that bumps into processing limitations; then there are times when hardware advances unleash newfound capacity for more sophisticated software.
It is easy to look at today’s traditional operations technology (OT) industrial controller options, represented most often by traditional programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and process automation controllers (PACs), and see them as mature technologies with capable software and fast hardware. The challenge is identifying what comes next.

A few industry trends are pointing the way. Modern consumer and commercial computing experiences are ripe for merging into industrial products. Internet of Things (IoT) devices are becoming commonplace and many are looking at incorporating Industrial IoT (IIoT) devices into automation systems. Digital transformation requires connecting with many data sources, collecting and storing the data, visualizing and analyzing it, enabling optimized operations.

In July 1984, an automated die-cast system operator died of cardiorespiratory arrest in a robotic accident. The operator got stuck between a steel safety pole and an industrial robot. The worker was an experienced employee trained on robotics for a week prior to this fatal encounter. It was later found he had entered the operating zone of the robot in an unsafe manner despite training, instructions, and warnings. A presence sensing device in such an application could have potentially averted the incident. 

This incident established the need to identify and enforce safeguards and practices to mitigate workplace incidents, especially in robotic process automation (RPA) enabled environments.