IND 3210 - Automation Technologies

• Perform basic calculations regarding analog-to-digital conversion and digital-to-analog conversion
• Distinguish important capabilities and limitations related to automation technologies, particularly with respect to robotics, identification, inspection, material handling, and storage systems
• Investigate and discuss the different debates and limitations with respect to ethics when implementing automation and robotics in organizations
• Select and justify a material transport system and a storage system for a given scenario in a manufacturing or service industry
• Explain the inverse and forward kinematics of robots and related coordinate systems
• Explain and exemplify automated production systems
• Explain and exemplify how image processing and visual systems are used in manufacturing processes
• Perform calculations related to production rate, production capacity, and storage capacity
• Distinguish important capabilities and limitations of robotic and automated processes
• Explain the different components of an automated system and how these components interact
• Explain the difference between sequence control vs a logic control task and identify cases where each task type is applied
• Implement basic Boolean elements of logic control to represent the process in a production system
• Use ladder logic to represent different task scenarios
• Design and construct a fully automated production system (a factory mockup) using a CoBot, a PLC and other hardware components (e.g., valves, sensors, and motors)
• Design and construct the electrical system to provide the energy to make the proposed automated production system (the factory mockup) work
• Program the CoBot and the PLC in such a way that the proposed automated production system (factory mockup) performs the set of tasks initially proposed as part of the final project of the course

• Physics as it relates to electricity and magnetism (e.g., capacitance, electric circuits)
• Logic and programming; logic control
• Application of electric circuits including electrical quantities in a steady-state DC context, DC series and parallel circuit analysis, AC series analysis, signal types (i.e., analog versus digital)

• Analog and digital introduction: ADC, DAC, microcontroller employment, basics of arrays, vectors, matrices, and systems of linear equations
• Introduction to logic control and PLCs: Boolean algebra, logic gates, truth tables, ladder logic for use in automation
• Introduction to robotics: applications, coordinate system frames, manipulator classification, forward and inverse kinematics
• Robotics & industrial control systems, robot programming, safety
• Product lifecycle management (PLM), digital manufacturing, flexible manufacturing systems, transfer lines
• Flexible manufacturing systems and transfer lines case studies
• Image processing and visual systems
• Course project: employment of microcontrollers, PLC, and a CoBot to simulate a sequence of manufacturing operations (factory mockup)

• Analog/digital introduction via microcontrollers
• Actuators and components of automated systems
• PLCs (ladder logic) and layout of factory (Sim)
• PLC programming (Direct Soft)
• Forward/inverse kinematics (SolidWorks Robot Sim)
• RobotStudio Sim of ABB robot
• Online programming of ABB robot and UR3 CoBots
• Visual systems investigation