The goal of Industry 4.0 is to improve the efficiency and competitiveness of manufacturing through digital, networked and intelligent methods. Intelligent manufacturing is the core of Industry 4.0, which refers to the application of intelligent technology in the manufacturing process to achieve automation, intelligence and digitization of the manufacturing process. At the same time, manufacturing is an important engine of global economic growth, but its production and operating costs have been rising. In order to reduce production and operating costs, many companies are working hard to improve production efficiency, which requires the help of sensors.
Smart sensors play a very important role in smart manufacturing. Smart sensors are devices that capture, record and communicate data from production processes. They can detect product quality, performance and characteristics, and help companies make decisions, improve production efficiency and reduce production costs through data analysis and mining. In addition, smart sensors can also help predict equipment failures by monitoring the status of equipment in real time and notify maintenance personnel immediately when a failure occurs, thereby improving the reliability and stability of production equipment.
I. Intelligent manufacturing and intelligent manufacturing systems
1.1 Intelligent Manufacturing
Intelligent manufacturing is one of the key topics in the field of manufacturing research in recent years. Germany put forward the Industry 4.0 strategy for the first time at the "2011 Hannover Messe". It connects the data of supply, manufacturing and sales in production through various end-to-end application software (enterprise resource planning system, supply chain management and product life cycle management, etc.), and establishes a highly flexible and elastic product production and Service mode, so as to realize the vertical integration of the workshop production process and the horizontal integration of the manufacturing value network.
Intelligent manufacturing is a new type of industrial model that takes various factors of human intelligence as the main body, organically combines informatization and industrialization, and realizes the interconnection, integration, sharing and optimized operation of information between people and things, and between people and machines. The "Intelligent Manufacturing Development Plan (2016-2020)" jointly prepared by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Finance defines intelligent manufacturing in detail and requires that intelligent manufacturing should have self-perception, self-learning, self-decision-making, Self-executing and adaptive functions.
1.2 Intelligent manufacturing system
Smart Manufacturing System (SMS) is a digital revolution in the manufacturing sector that integrates all aspects of the production process with the latest technologies, aiming to achieve greater success through real-time control and monitoring, flexible operations, rapid market adaptation, advanced sensors and Big data analytics to improve efficiency and competitiveness. SMS operates in two modes: semi-automatic and fully automatic. In semi-automatic mode, the production engineer sets the targets and parameters; in fully automatic mode, the system itself optimizes the operating parameters and implements them automatically in all interconnected production cells. In the SMS framework, industrial components aim to provide convenient, sustainable and safe operations for smart manufacturing through sensors, hardware, software and other integrated services such as smart devices and connected tools.
II. Sensors and smart sensors
2.1 Sensor
A sensor is a physical device or biological organ that can detect and feel external signals, physical conditions (such as light, heat, humidity) or chemical composition (such as smoke), and send this message to other electronic devices (such as central processing units) device), usually consists of a sensing device and a conversion device.
Different Types of Sensors
Sensors commonly used in industry include: light sensors, pressure sensors, flaw detection sensors, temperature sensors, proximity sensors, humidity sensors, force sensors, flow sensors and gas sensors, as well as color sensors.
2.2 Smart Sensor
Smart sensors refer to multi-component integrated circuits with functions such as information collection, processing, exchange and storage. They are system-level products that integrate sensors, communication chips, microprocessors, drive systems and software algorithms. A smart sensor is a device capable of receiving, converting, processing and recording data. Essentially, a smart sensor is a programmable piece of hardware whose purpose is to collect, store and process relevant data.
Smart sensor physical picture
The intelligent sensing technology applied in intelligent manufacturing refers to various intelligent devices with "perception", "understanding" and "analysis" capabilities. The intelligent sensors used mainly include: vision, sound wave, gas, sound, vibration and motion sensors .These devices obtain information by collecting, processing, and transmitting data, and obtain surrounding information by sensing the environment; process it with algorithms; and then transmit the results to the upper system or software platform, thereby realizing intelligent and automated production.
According to different applications, smart sensors can be divided into the following types.
a) Optical system
Such as infrared, ultraviolet, laser and optical fiber, etc.
b) Thermal sensitive element
Such as temperature sensor or pressure sensor, etc.
c) Radio frequency electronic system
Such as Wi-Fi (wireless communication), etc.
d) Electrical sensor or infrared/laser/photoelectric system (laser sensor)
They can detect the properties of various materials and do so by converting them into electrical signals.
e) Chemical sensors
Such as sensors for ion and gas detection, biochemical measurements, etc.
f) Magnetic sensor
Such as magnetic sensors, which can be used to measure the magnetic field strength or magnetic induction intensity of moving objects to monitor moving objects (such as magnets).
g) Light sensor or optical fiber
It transmits light to a signal source and detects it, which can be used to identify objects, such as LiDAR (RGB-D) used in cars.
III. The demand for sensors in smart manufacturing
In SMS, an integrated intelligent network is needed to make the factory move towards intelligence. Sensors can capture and analyze data to make effective decisions and can self-optimize for the automation of production lines. Smart sensors can collect environmental information and monitor the status and parameters of production equipment in real time. At the same time, smart sensors can also interconnect a large number of equipment scattered in the industrial field to achieve real-time monitoring and control. As smart manufacturing gradually rises and receives attention in our country, sensors, as an important part of it, will be widely used in various industries, and their status will become increasingly important.
Application Scenarios of Smart Sensors in Smart Manufacturing
The demand for smart sensors in smart manufacturing is mainly reflected in the following aspects.
3.1 SMS
In factory automation, real-time monitoring of the status and parameters of production equipment is required.
3.2 Environmental perception ability
In the factory automation system, it is necessary to detect and perceive various production environment information in the workshop in real time. Real-time monitoring of the operating status of various machinery and equipment in the factory.
3.3 Equipment control capabilities
SMS needs to control and collect data in all aspects of the factory production process to form a closed-loop system.
3.4 Decision analysis ability
In the factory automation system, it is necessary to control the machinery and equipment on the production line to form a complete closed-loop system.
3.5 Maintenance and repair capabilities after use
In terms of machine maintenance and post-use management, a large amount of sensor data collection, processing and analysis work need to be carried out, and machine faults need to be processed and evaluated in a timely manner to ensure production efficiency and product quality.
3.6 Environmental impact assessment
After the concept of Industry 4.0 was proposed, a large number of smart sensors were used in many industries to monitor the environment, thereby avoiding damage to the environment caused by manual intervention.
3.7 Ability to evaluate after use
Intelligent manufacturing systems must not only ensure safe and accident-free production processes and high production efficiency, but also ensure short maintenance and repair cycles after product use to achieve safety and environmental protection throughout the product life cycle.
3.8 Predictive analysis capabilities
Intelligent manufacturing systems require a large amount of data collection and processing to achieve predictive analysis and calculation, so as to make timely and accurate decisions and reduce the waste of resources due to human errors.
IV. Application and Significance of Smart Sensors in Smart Manufacturing
Smart sensors use transducers to collect data from the physical environment. It acquires the information, performs calculations on it, presets and optimizes the type of data it collects, and then transmits the data over the network to a cloud or edge computing environment for storage, analysis, and Digging. Based on providing real-time data analysis and prediction, SMS can dynamically optimize its physical environment according to the collected data. Smart sensors can provide environmental monitoring and data collection functions for SMS, and provide fast and accurate decision-making basis.
In SMS, network communication ensures that computers share status and activity-related information in a timely manner and collect supporting information and control commands to carry out activities effectively. The implementation of smart manufacturing is based on sensor technology, which mainly means that SMS and equipment status data are collected by sensors used in process-level information systems and workflows. These sensors will be installed at multiple points of the SMS to simplify the data collection process.
At present, smart sensors are increasingly used in automated production lines, and more "logistics services" are provided for automated production lines through the network, Internet of Things process control, data collection and data exchange. As various segments of my country's manufacturing industry transform towards digitalization, long-distance proximity sensors of various forms will also play an increasingly important role in the manufacturing process.
The application and significance of smart sensors in smart manufacturing mainly include the following aspects.
4.1 Realize device interconnection
Smart sensors generate data by connecting multiple devices and systems, allowing various machines to communicate with each other. Intelligent sensing promotes producers' transition from manual maintenance to automated maintenance. Data monitoring can identify equipment health trends and provide real-time reminders as to whether equipment requires maintenance. When the health of the device is not good, the system will warn the user of this information to prevent the device from malfunctioning.
4.2 Improve production efficiency
Smart sensors enable manufacturers to implement agile manufacturing, thereby increasing productivity in real-time processes. Sensor data provides SMS with visual images of peaks and flows in the factory, making the production process more transparent. At the same time, smart sensors and manufacturing digitization will enable companies to maintain production in an open, reliable and higher-quality manner, allowing manufacturers to be more efficient. Regularly and efficiently improve production efficiency. The future of smart production is to build a digitally connected manufacturing factory that integrates physical and network technologies to drive higher levels of production efficiency. Smart sensor-assisted SMS integrates discrete structures and leverages the capacity of massive data to increase factory automation and digitization, thereby increasing production efficiency.
4.3 Improve quality management level
Smart sensors can be used in production environments to support quality management and tracking on device platforms. Smart sensors use microprocessors to customize output and provide better machine execution. The advancement of smart sensor technology attracts potential developers and improves their quality management level, because smart sensors can connect different operating systems, allow different machines to communicate and make reasonable execution plans, which will force each Manufacturers produce higher-precision equipment to adapt to new smart sensors. Finally, factory management can also use these accurate data and efficient machines to make more informed decisions on the operation of automated factories, thereby achieving the purpose of improving quality management.
4.4 Track the entire manufacturing process
Smart sensors can be used to track the entire process of manufacturing, they collect data and send the data to a central cloud computing system to collect and analyze the entire production process. Factory decision-makers can track these results to understand the status of each production process. Smart sensors are widely used in manufacturing, and in bioengineering, they can be used to measure biological functions, for example: measuring chemical reaction in pharmaceutical processes, and monitoring the fitness of buildings and industrial plants in design, engineering and construction.
4.5 Enhanced automation
Smart sensors are devices that passively collect data generated at any manufacturing or logistics stage. Smart sensors enable machines to intelligently sense and upload all this information, and identify and analyze it for better automation. The information provided by smart sensors not only enables engineers to operate machines and processes via SMS, but also to track specific production systems and detect or avoid potential failures. It can even help SMS automatically adjust the addition or subtraction of materials and optimize the manufacturing process based on data. Nowadays, smart sensors are an important part of factory automation and digitization, different types of sensors can collect various data and calculate various parameters to optimize production automation.
4.6 Improving the precision of manufacturing machinery
Smart sensors can improve the performance and accuracy of production machinery systems. Smart sensors automatically record data such as energy consumption, temperature, humidity, running time, maintenance, and production line output. Based on these data, manufacturing machinery workflow can be improved; in addition, it can detect Equipment anomalies that may affect product performance and quality are reported in real time to adjust the manufacturing machinery process.
4.7 Standardize the process
Smart sensors play an important role in continuously tracking and regulating processes. Installing sensors with remote sensing and tracking capabilities in smart factories based on the Internet of Things can play an important role in industrial control. As part of customized automation, they will monitor the entire process of product development, production and packaging, and also Material movements can be tracked to monitor production processes for compliance. Modern production lines in nearly every industry today rely on smart sensors.
4.8 Detecting faults
As smart sensors are continuously collected on the equipment to track its performance, with predictive analytics to detect possible failures and determine when individual components are working at peak efficiency. With this information, engineers can ensure rapid adaptation of new equipment in the pipeline, and can plan repair work in advance to reduce construction delays. However, one of the main causes of equipment failure is still human error, and even with the help of smart sensors to detect failures, it is still necessary to strengthen the professionalism of workers.
4.9 Optimize production tasks
The job monitoring function of smart sensors can maximize the time allocation of various production tasks by optimizing production tasks, thereby optimizing the overall production efficiency of the factory. Smart sensors will connect and track critical infrastructure in a timely manner, and when imminent risks are detected, adjustment strategies such as interruptions will be implemented urgently, for example: sensors used for assembly line quality monitoring can close physical digital loops within minutes after detecting risks to reduce production risks. For smart factories, smart sensors identify and monitor objects at low cost and without contact, reducing the risk of inventory or property loss. The automated production lines of the smart factory of the future will self-optimize through smart sensors detecting changes in orientation, weight, height, misalignment, temperature, pressure, and torque.
V. The future development direction of smart sensors
In the context of Industry 4.0 and the development trend of smart manufacturing in the world, smart sensors are playing an increasingly important role, and their future development mainly reflects the following trends.
5.1 Combined with edge computing technology
Smart sensors will be combined with edge computing technology, that is, the sensors can be connected to edge computing devices through wireless networks, so that data can be transmitted to places far away from the data center for processing and analysis, so that the data can be processed at a faster speed and in a more accurate way. Low latency and a more reliable way to process, and can reduce the pressure on the data center, thus improving the overall performance of smart manufacturing systems.
5.2 Combined with cloud computing
The combination of smart sensors and cloud computing allows data to be processed on a large amount of storage and computing resources, thereby improving the efficiency of data collection, storage and processing. At the same time, since data stored in the cloud can be accessed anytime and anywhere, data analysis and mining can be more convenient.
5.3 Combined with artificial intelligence technology
The combination of smart sensors and artificial intelligence technology can improve the efficiency of data collection, storage and processing. Artificial intelligence technology can process and analyze data collected by smart sensors through methods such as machine learning, natural language processing, and image recognition; sensors can process and analyze data more effectively through artificial intelligence technology. The combination of smart sensors and artificial intelligence technology can greatly improve data processing efficiency and make data analysis more accurate and faster.
5.4 Combined with IoT technology
In the future, smart sensors can transmit data in the production process to the cloud in real time through Internet of Things technology, and then use big data and artificial intelligence technology to analyze and predict the data to improve production efficiency, reduce costs, and improve product quality. In addition, smart sensors can also realize the automation and intelligence of industrial production through intelligent monitoring and control, thereby improving production efficiency, reducing costs, and ensuring product quality.
VI. Conclusion
In the future, smart sensors will continue to develop and be more widely used in the field of smart manufacturing, and will continue to improve their functions and performance. Smart sensors will be closely integrated with technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and big data to achieve smarter and more efficient monitoring and control.
Smart sensors are of great significance to the high-quality development of the world's manufacturing industry. First of all, smart sensors can realize real-time monitoring and control of the production process, improving production efficiency and product quality. Secondly, smart sensors can help enterprises achieve digital transformation, improve production management levels, and realize intelligent production processes.
Smart sensors can also help the world's manufacturing industry achieve efficient use of resources and sustainable development of the environment. Through the monitoring and control of intelligent sensors, energy consumption and environmental pollution can be effectively controlled, providing strong support for the green development of the world's manufacturing industry.
The development of smart sensors will help promote technological upgrading and industrial restructuring of the world's manufacturing industry. Through the promotion and application of smart sensors, we can promote the transformation of the world's manufacturing industry from low-end manufacturing to high-end manufacturing and achieve high-quality development of the manufacturing industry. It is an important technical means for the modernization and high-quality development of the world's manufacturing industry.
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