Automation In Manufacturing System

Manufacturing Automation is a key technology necessary for improving the quality and quantity of manufactured products.This technology is specially important in developing countries due to the shortage of skilled workers in those countries.Several automatic techniques are available for detecting faults in different machine components and locating the immediate faulty areas.Computer Numerical Control(CNC)machines,robots,surface milling machines,lathes and compressors are among hundreds of widely used machines in manufacturing.Every one of these tools is designed with the idea of repetition in mind.On an assembly line,each component repeats a task over and over again,most of the time without a break.The cost associated with manufacturing a piece is multiplied by hundreds and thousand of pieces manufactured at site.These pieces could be related to automobiles,refrigerators,toys,pharmaceuticals,clothing,computers etc.Precision has found more and more demand everyday for the past decade.Due to great amounts of competition in the line of manufacturing,unlike the past,only companies with the best products survive.

Due to the repetitive nature of manufacturing,most people working in these sites become more and more valuable for the creation of their product.This is due to the fact that they gain experience and their productivity increases with their experience.Unfortunately, one cannot say the same thing about most machines on the assembly line.They start wearing out and they hardly learn anything from their past experiences.In an optimal manufacturing process,it is desirable for the system to learn and improve its performance with experience.It is also desirable that any components of the system which are no longer performing optimally should be found and reported to the human supervisor in an automatic manner so that they could be replaced with a new piece.

Controls In Manufacturing

A wide class of controllers in this employ predefined gains and do not take into consideration the nonlinear dynamics in these machines. [1, 2] These gains are based on linear approximations of these highly nonlinear systems and are tuned to different tasks manually.These tuning jobs usually take hours and sometimes days and during this time the machines are not operable.The result is that these machines are not utilized to their full potential in terms of speed and precision.With a more sophisticated control strategy,it is possible to compensate for the complicated effects of nonlinearities which have in the past been considered as disturbances in most systems.Two classes of newly developed control systems which are mostly geared toward manufacturing applications are called Repetitive and Learning control systems.A repetitive controller [15, 16] is designed for processes which operate in cycles.Repetitive controllers assume that there is continuity between the last point of a repetition and the first point of the next repetition.In Learning Controllers the initial conditions are reset to the same value at each repetition.The Learning Self-tuning Regulator has also shown both in computer simulations and in experimental setups to be highly robust and to reduce the total error of systems by considerable amounts.

Another important need of manufacturing systems is to be able to monitor different components automatically.Lots of research has been done in this area in the past decade.The health of components such as bearings could be monitored by placing inexpensive accelerometer on the body of the machine.Similar type of research has been done for monitoring compressors which could seriously malfunction and blow up in cases.Automatic monitoring systems could shut these systems down before they could cause any danger.In such cases,lives might be saved using these automatic monitors.

Using these new technologies in control and monitoring of manufacturing processes could be very practical and valuable.Using these techniques,better quality products could be manufactured in addition to the increased speeds of production.The down-time of manufacturing processes is reduced extensively using condition monitoring techniques and the expertise of human workers could be used in much more useful ways.Perfect integration of the above techniques could amount to an optimal manufacturing process. 

PHOTOVOLTAIC

Photovoltaic (PV) devices generate electricity directly from sunlight via an electronic process that occurs naturally in certain types of material, called semiconductors. Electrons in these materials are freed by solar energy and can be induced to travel through an electrical circuit, powering electrical devices or sending electricity to the grid.PV devices can be used to power anything from small electronics such as calculators and road signs up to homes and large commercial businesses.

How does PV technology work?
Photons strike and ionize semiconductor material on the solar panel, causing outer electrons to break free of their atomic bonds. Due to the semiconductor structure, the electrons are forced in one direction creating a flow of electrical current.Solar cells are not 100% efficient in Diagram of a typical crystalline silicon solar cell. Solar cells are not 100% efficient in part because some of the light spectrum is reflected, some is too weak to create electricity (infrared) and some (ultraviolet) creates heat energy instead of electricity.

Others types of Photovoltaic Technology
Thin Film PV is a fast-growing but small part of the commercial solar market. Many thin-film firms are start-ups developing experimental technologies. They are generally less efficient but often cheaper than c-Si modules. 
In the United States, concentrating PV arrays are found primarily in the desert Southwest. They use lenses and mirrors to reflect concentrated solar energy onto high-efficiency cells. They require direct sunlight and tracking systems to be most effective 
History of Photovoltaic Technology
The PV effect was observed as early as 1839 by Alexandre Edmund Becquerel, and was the subject of scientific inquiry through the early twentieth century. In 1954, Bell Labs in the U.S. introduced the first solar PV device that produced a useable amount of electricity, and by 1958, solar cells were being used in a variety of small-scale scientific and commercial applications.The energy crisis of the 1970s saw the beginning of major interest in using solar cells to produce electricity in homes and businesses, but prohibitive prices (nearly 30 times higher than the current price) made large-scale applications impractical.Industry developments and research in the following years made PV devices more feasible and a cycle of increasing production and decreasing costs began which continues even today.

Most modern solar cells are made from either crystalline silicon or thin-film semiconductor material. Silicon cells are more efficient at converting sunlight to electricity, but generally have higher manufacturing costs. Thin-film materials typically have lower efficiencies, but can be simpler and less costly to manufacture. A specialized category of solar cells - called multi-junction or tandem cells - are used in applications requiring very low weight and very high efficiencies, such as satellites and military applications. All types of PV systems are widely used today in a variety of applications.
 In most parts of India sunlight and wind is available in abundance for generating energy. While solar energy generation is quite predictable and will occur only during the daylight hours, wind energy is location specific. Complementing solar and wind energy with batteries and diesel generators will ensure uninterrupted supply of power. All our systems are designed to maximize the use of renewable energy thereby reducing dependence on fossil fuels.

Google's Loon

Project Loon is research and development project being developed by Google with mission of providing Internet access to rural & remote areas.The project uses high altitude balloons placed in the stratosphere at an altitude of about 32 Km to create an aerial wireless network using a special internet antenna attached to their building.The signal travels through the balloon to balloon then ground based station connected to Internet Service Provider(ISP),then onto the global Internet.The system aims to bring Internet access to remote & rural areas poorly served by existing provisions & to improve communication during natural disasters to affected regions.

The technology designed in the project could allow countries to avoid using expensive fiber cable that would have to be installed underground to allow users to connect to the internet.Google feels this will greatly increase internet usage in developing countries in regions such as Africa & Southeast Asia that can't afford to lay underground fiber cable.Project Loon balloons positioned in the stratosphere wind at an altitude of about 20 Km,twice as high as airplane flights & weather changes.It is situated on the edge of space between 10 Km & 60 Km in altitude having steady wind below 20 mph.This spherical layer is great for solar panels because there are no clouds to block the sun.

Each balloon has a radio antenna that provide constant connectivity to the ground and connects each balloon to other balloon.There is special ground antenna that is installed on the home or workplace to access the internet from balloon.Google claims that each balloon can provide signal connectivity to ground area about 40 Km in diameter & able to deliver 3G comparable speeds.These antenna uses ISM bands of spectrum 2.4 GHz & 5.8 GHz.

There are two types of communications:1.Balloon to Balloon Communication.

                                                            2.Balloon to Ground Communication.

In loon design there are three main components

1.Envelope:The inflatable part of the balloon is called Envelope.Each super pressure balloon is made of polyethylene plastic material & filled with helium.When fully inflated the balloon height is 12 m & it's width is 15 m.The envelope is designed to resistant exposure to UV rays & is capable to function at dramatic temperature swing as low as -80 degree celsius. 

2.Solar Panel:Each balloon's solar panel provide power to it's own electronics.The solar panel's mounted at a steep angle to effectively capture sunlight.The panel produce approximately 100 watts of power in full sun & additional power is stored in rechargeable batteries.

3.Electronics:A small electronic box hangs underneath the inflated envelope.This box contains circuit boards,Linux based computer,radio antenna,GPS sensors & batteries.They have specific function.circuit boards to control the system,radio antenna for communication,GPS for tracking location,sensors to monitor and record weather conditions & lithium ions batteries to store solar panel.

Internet connectivity & communication become one of the basic needs in modern human daily life.An innovative idea like the Google's Project Loon would aid & benefit remote area of the world.It would also provide backbone communication during & after natural disaster when ground infrastructure is destroyed.   

TESLA'S GIGAFACTORY

Tesla officially opened it's Gigafactory on last Tuesday,a little more than two years after construction began.The factory is about 14 percent complete,but when it's finished it will be about 10 million square feet or about the size of 262 NFL football fields.That will make it one of the largest building in the world.It's a massive,$5 billion(roughly Rs,33,630 crores) factory in the Nevada desert that could nearly double the world's production of lithium ion batteries.

The company says making it's own lithium-ion batteries at the scale the Gigafactory will allow will reduce i's battery cost by more than a third by 2018.Most immediate Tesla needs the batteries foe it's fourth car,the model 3 Sedan,which is scheduled to go on sale at the end of next year.The model 3 will be Tesla's least expensive vehicle,partly because of battery cost reduction.To meet the goal,Gigafactory construction is proceeding at a furious pace.Robots are used to place battery packs into home and office units which store energy,from solar panel's and allow users to tap it during peak periods.The factory's name stems from "giga",a unit of measurement that represent billions.One gigawatt hour is the equivalent of generating one billion watts for one hour-one million times that of one kilowatt hour.Tesla says the factory will be producing 35 gigawatt hours of batteries by 2018.That's the equivalent to the entire world's production in 2014.Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said the factory has the capacity to produce,50 gigawatt hours if it needs to.To put that in context,New York city uses around 52 gigawatt hours of energy per year.

Musk says there are still plenty of ways for Tesla,to reduce costs including making it's factories more efficient and eventually building more battery factories in Europe,China and other regions.Where it's cars are sold.     

AUTOMATION IN PRODUCTION SYSTEM

Some elements of the production system are likely to be automated,whereas others will be operated manually or clerically.For our purpose here automation can be defined as a technology concerned with the application of mechanical,electrical and computer based system to operate and control production.
The automated elements of the production system can be separated into two categories
1.Automation of the Manufacturing system in the factory
2.Computerization of the Manufacturing support system
In modern production system the automated manufacturing system,the two categories overlap to some extent,because the automated manufacturing system operating on the factory floor are themselves often implemented by computer system and connected to the computerized manufacturing system and connected to the computerized manufacturing support system and management information system operating at the plant and enterprise levels.

Automated Manufacturing System
Automated Manufacturing Systems operate in the factory on the physical product.They performs operation such as processing,assembly,inspection or material handling in some cases accomplishing more than one of these operations in the same.Some of the examples of automated manufacturing systems include:

• Automated machine tools that process parts
• Automated assembly systems
• Automatic inspection system for quality control
• Automatic material handling and storage system to integrate manufacturing operation

Automated manufacturing system can be classified into three basic types:
1.Fixed Automation:It is a system in which sequence of processing operation is fixed by the equipment configuration.The economical justification for fixed automation is found in production that are produced in very large quantities and at high production rate.Fixed automation include machining transfer lines and automated assembly machines.
2.Programmable Automation:In Programmable Automation,the production equipment designed with the capability to change the sequence of operations to accommodate different product configuration .The operation sequence is controlled by a program,which is a set of instruction coded so that they can read and interpreted by the system.Programmable automation include numerically controlled machine tools and PLC's
3.Flexible Automation:Flexible Automation is an extension of programmable automation.The production rate is medium and it is flexible to deal with product design.

Computerized Manufacturing Support System
It is generally implemented to reduce the amount of manual and clerical efforts in product design, manufacturing,planning and control and the business function of the firm.The Computer Integrated  Manufacturing(CIM) denotes the necessary use of computer system to design the product,plan the production,control the operation and performs various business related function needed in manufacturing firm.In CIM Computer Aided Design(CAD) denotes the use of computer system to perform functiones related to manufacturing ,engineering,such as process planning and numerical control part programming.
Processing activities are accomplished to implement the four basic manufacturing support fuctions
1.Business functions 2.Product design 3.Manufacturing planning 4.Manufacturing control.

REASONS FOR AUTOMATING:

• To increase labor productivity 
• To reduce labor cost
• To reduce or eliminating routine manual and clerical task
• To improve worker safety
• To improve product quality
• To reduce manufacturing lead time
• To mitigate the effect of labor shortage   

   

NITI AAYOG:National Institute for Transforming India

It is government of India policy established by the Narendra Modi government to replace the planning commission . The union government of India announced the formation of NITI  Aayog

on 1 Jan 2015 and the first meeting was held on 8 Feb 2015. The main aim of NITI Aayog is to maintain the relationship between central government  and state government of India. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley made the following observation on the necessity of creating NITI Aayog,"The 65 years old planning commission had become a redundant organisation.It was relevant in a command economy structure,but not only longer.

 NITI Aayog replaces planning commission with a "control commission''.Planning commission is nothing but resources for the development plans for national progression and control commission is an independent regulatory body whose Chairperson is Prime Minister of India.Vice Chairperson of NITI Aayog is Arvind Panagariya and their official members and Rajnath Singh,Arun Jaitley,Suresh Prabhu, and Radha Mohan. Economist Bibek Debroy and former DRDO chief V.K.Saraswat are it's full time members.Amitabh Hant is C.E.O of NITI Aayog. NITI Aayog launches women Transforming India Initiative.

The objective of NITI Aayog is important evolutionary change from the past will be replacing a centre to state one way flow of policy by a genuine and continuing partnership with the states.NITI Aayog has launched their official website niti.gov.in from that you will get more information about ongoing projects of NITI Aayog.      

  

WIMBLEDON

Wimbledon is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and is widely consider the most prestigious.It has been held at the all England club in Wimbledon,London since 1887.Wimbledon is one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments the other being Australian open,the French open and US open.Wimbledon is the only tennis tournament which played on grass court.The tournament takes place over two weeks n late June and early July,including with the Ladies and Gentlemen's singles final.

The inaugural 1877 Wimbledon championship opened on 9th July 1877.The gentlemen's singles was the only event held and was won by Spencer Gore.The lawns at the ground were arranged so that the principal court was in the middle with the others arranged around it,hence the title 'Centre Court'.In 1884 the club added ladies singles and gentlemen's double competitions.Matches in the Gentlemen's singles and Gentlemen's doubles are best of five sets all other events are best of three sets.In Wimbledon ball boys and girls known ass BBG's play a crucial role in the smooth running of the tournament.In stadium there is special reservation for Royal families.The gentlemen's singles champion is presented with a silver glit cup 18.5 inches in height and 7.5 inches in diameter.The ladies singles champion is presented with a sterling silver slaver commonly known as Venus Rosewater Dish.The winner of the gentlemen's doubles,ladies double's and mixed double's event receive silver cups

Winner of the most Gentlemen's single's titles:Roger Federer(7 times)

Winner of the most mixed double's titles Gentlemen:Owen Davidson & Leander Paes(4 times)

Winner of the most Gentlemen's double's titles:Todd Woodbridge(9 times)

Winner of the most Ladies single's titles:Martial Navratilova(9 times)

Winner of the most mixed double's titles Ladies:Martial Navratilova(4 times)

Winner of the most Ladies double's titles:Martial Navratilova(7 times)

Andy Murray was the winner of the gentlemen's singles in 2016 & Serena Williams was the winner of the Ladies singles in 2016.Pierre Hugues Herbert & Nicolas Mahut the winner of the gentlemen's double's in 2016 & Venus-Serena Williams the winner of the Ladies double's in 2016.Heather Watson & Henri Kontinen the winner of the Mixed double's in 2016.Without Wimbledon Tennis is incomplete.Wimbledon is like a World Cup for Tennis Fan's.