INTEGRATED AUTOMATION TECHNOLOGIES

A one week short term course on Integrated Automation Technologies under the scheme of Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP - II) was held at IIT Delhi from 1st June - 6th June, 2015. The course was coordinated by Dr. Sunil Jha, from Mechanical Engineering Department, IIT Delhi and Mr. Anup Wadhwa, Director; Automation Industry Association (AIA) . The course was attended by faculty members from Mechanical, Electrical Departments, and industry oriented researchers, from all over India. Ms. Manjari Saxena, Assistant Professor Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurgaon attend the course.

Dr. Sunil Jha stated the objective of this course that it strives to impart adequate background on automation as well as to provide hands-on training to appreciate contemporary automation technologies, their integration. Automation Technologies defines interaction of hardware components, software, and services to achieve automation solutions. Engineering of machines and processes with Automation has become a way of thinking in every sector.

On 1st June, 2015 Dr. Jha gave an Introduction to Industrial Automation, technologies involved in it and the relevance of the course. He explained about Fluid Power Control in Industrial Automation and Electro-Pneumatic and Electro Hydraulic System Design. General purpose controllers for industrial processes include Programmable logic controllers and computers. Application of Integrated automation Technologies for ‘zero defect and zero effect’ is going to revolutionize the manufacturing industry. Automation industry has seen a rapid growth in the recent years as bright engineering minds find tremendous opportunities to blend their core domain expertise with their understanding of ‘real-time’ control. This cross disciplinary segment is vital to enhance productivity, reliability, quality, safety and regulatory conformance across multiple domains. Faiz Iqbal, research scholar at IITD took the lab session on Pneumatics and Electropneumatics.

On 2nd June, 2015 Dr. Sunil Jha lectured on Programmable Logic Controllers - Basics & Programming. The PLC lab sessions on Sensors were coordinated by Faiz Iqbal. Naganarayanan Meyyappan of Famic Technologies gave an Online Demo from Canada on Automation Studio. Industrial automation deals primarily with the automation of manufacturing, quality control and material handling processes.

On 3rd June, 2015 a Quiz competition was organized among the participants to recapitulate the previous day’s sessions. Then Dr. Sunil Jha discussed on Basics of Motion Control, Visualization in Automation. Then Mr. Sudhanshu Kapoor, Pepperl & Fuchs India Pvt. Ltd. lectured on Industrial Sensors and their Role in Automation. A session on Automation tools for Machine Designers was given by Coneenica Choudhuri of Titan Machines. A case study on applying Motion Control Systems- Shop Floor was given by Praveen Vaidya, Manager at B&R Industrial Automation. Automation or automatic control is the use of various control systems for operating equipment such as machinery, processes in factories, boilers and heat treating ovens, switching in telephone networks, steering and stabilization of ships, aircraft and other applications with minimal or reduced human intervention.

On 4th June, 2015 Harish Nachnani, National Sales Manager, Festo Controls Pvt. Ltd. discussed on the topic of blended Learning as a cost effective tool for skilling in automation.

On 5th June, 2015 the participants were taken to an Industrial Visit to BSES SCADA Centre, New Delhi. The SCADA System Centre monitors the power distribution system and supply on a real time basis and abnormalities in the system are immediately flagged and corrective action is taken. Stating that "the communication between the Grid Station and Control Centre is being established and optic fibre network with ring loop formation ensures online connectivity at all times,'' a BSES official said SCADA leads to faster identification-isolation-and restoration of faults, loss minimisation, forecasting of load, intelligent alarms, better resource handling, reactive power management, Distribution Management System (DMS), more efficient outage management, switching optimisation and network study and planning.

In the next session Jaya Nangia of Chemtrols Industries. Ltd. lectured on Integrated Process Automation and Analytics. Ravi Agarwal, Director of Pepperl & Fuchs described the topic Advances in Sensors, Control & Information Networks. Automation has been achieved by various means including mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic, electrical, electronic and computers, usually in combination. . Complicated systems, such as modern factories, airplanes and ships typically use all these combined techniques.

On 6th June, 2015 Vikram Patil, Manager, Building Automation of Bachoff Automation talked on Building Automation. The last session was taken by Dayanand Arya of Adroit Control Engineers Pvt. ltd on Implementing System Engineering Projects. The program concluded with a valedictory session and vote of thanks from Prof. S.R. Kale, Head of the Department.

The STC played a very important role in increasing the knowledge of the participants in the field of Industrial Automation. The course coordinators explained the concepts of Automation and its industrial significance and the entire above mentioned course contents.