Editing Automation (section)

==History==

===Early history===
[[Image:Clepsydra-Diagram-Fancy.jpeg|thumb|upright|Ctesibius's clepsydra (3rd century BC)]]

It was a preoccupation of the Greeks and Arabs (in the period between about 300&nbsp;BC and about 1200&nbsp;AD) to keep accurate track of time. In [[Ptolemaic Egypt]], about 270&nbsp;BC, [[Ctesibius]] described a float regulator for a [[water clock]], a device not unlike the ball and cock in a modern flush toilet. This was the earliest feedback-controlled mechanism.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Guarnieri|first=M.|s2cid=24885437|date=2010|title=The Roots of Automation Before Mechatronics|journal=IEEE Ind. Electron. M. |volume=4| issue=2| pages=42–43 |doi=10.1109/MIE.2010.936772 |hdl=11577/2424833 |hdl-access=free}}</ref> The appearance of the mechanical clock in the 14th century made the water clock and its feedback control system obsolete.

The [[History of Iran|Persian]] [[Banū Mūsā]] brothers, in their ''[[Book of Ingenious Devices]]'' (850&nbsp;AD), described a number of automatic controls.<ref name=Hassan>[[Ahmad Y Hassan]], [http://www.history-science-technology.com/Articles/articles%2071.htm Transfer Of Islamic Technology To The West, Part II: Transmission Of Islamic Engineering] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080218171021/http://www.history-science-technology.com/Articles/articles%2071.htm |date=18 February 2008 }}</ref> Two-step level controls for fluids, a form of discontinuous [[variable structure control]]s, were developed by the Banu Musa brothers.<ref>{{citation|title=Soft variable-structure controls: a survey|author=J. Adamy & A. Flemming|journal=Automatica|volume=40|issue=11|date=November 2004|pages=1821–1844|doi=10.1016/j.automatica.2004.05.017|url=https://www1.rmr.tu-darmstadt.de/pdf/flemming2004.pdf|access-date=12 July 2019|archive-date=8 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308124345/https://www1.rmr.tu-darmstadt.de/pdf/flemming2004.pdf}}</ref> They also described a [[Control theory|feedback controller]].<ref name=Mayr>[[Otto Mayr]] (1970). ''The Origins of Feedback Control'', [[MIT Press]].</ref><ref name=Hill>[[Donald Routledge Hill]], "Mechanical Engineering in the Medieval Near East", ''Scientific American'', May 1991, p. 64-69.</ref> The design of feedback control systems up through the Industrial Revolution was by trial-and-error, together with a great deal of engineering intuition. It was not until the mid-19th century that the stability of feedback control systems was analyzed using mathematics, the formal language of automatic control theory.{{Citation needed|date=May 2021}}

The [[centrifugal governor]] was invented by [[Christiaan Huygens]] in the seventeenth century, and used to adjust the gap between [[millstone]]s.<ref>{{cite web|title=Charting the Globe and Tracking the Heavens|url=http://www.princeton.edu/~hos/Mahoney/clarklec.html|website=Princeton.edu}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Bellman|first=Richard E.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iwbWCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA36|title=Adaptive Control Processes: A Guided Tour|date=8 December 2015|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-1-4008-7466-8}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Bennett|first1=S.|title=A History of Control Engineering 1800–1930|publisher=Peter Peregrinus Ltd.|year=1979|isbn=978-0-86341-047-5|location=London|pages=47, 266}}
</ref>

===Industrial Revolution in Western Europe===
[[File:Tower bridge steam engine.jpg|thumb|[[Steam engine]]s promoted automation through the need to control engine speed and power.]]

The introduction of [[Engine|prime movers]], or self-driven machines advanced grain mills, furnaces, boilers, and the [[steam engine]] created a new requirement for automatic control systems including [[thermostat|temperature regulator]]s (invented in 1624; see [[Cornelius Drebbel]]), [[pressure regulator]]s (1681), [[float regulator]]s (1700) and [[speed control]] devices. Another control mechanism was used to tent the sails of windmills. It was patented by Edmund Lee in 1745.<ref name="Bennett 1979 pp"/> Also in 1745, [[Jacques de Vaucanson]] invented the first automated loom. Around 1800, [[Joseph Marie Jacquard]] created [[Jacquard machine|a punch-card system]] to program looms.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Bronowski|first=Jacob|url=http://archive.org/details/ascentofman0000bron_y1z2|title=The Ascent of Man|publisher=BBC Books|year=1990|isbn=978-0-563-20900-3|location=London|page=265|author-link=Jacob Bronowski|orig-date=1973}}</ref>

In 1771 [[Richard Arkwright]] invented the first fully automated spinning mill driven by water power, known at the time as the [[water frame]].<ref>{{cite book|first=Tessie P.|last=Liu|title=The Weaver's Knot: The Contradictions of Class Struggle and Family Solidarity in Western France, 1750–1914|url=https://archive.org/details/weaversknotcontr00liut|url-access=registration|year=1994|publisher=Cornell University Press|isbn=978-0-8014-8019-5|page=[https://archive.org/details/weaversknotcontr00liut/page/91 91]}}</ref> An automatic flour mill was developed by [[Oliver Evans]] in 1785, making it the first completely automated industrial process.<ref>{{cite book|last=Jacobson|first=Howard B.|title=Automation and Society|url=https://archive.org/details/automationsociet00jaco|year=1959|publisher=Philosophical Library|location=New York, NY|page=[https://archive.org/details/automationsociet00jaco/page/8 8]|author2=Joseph S. Roueek}}</ref><ref>{{Hounshell1984}}</ref>

[[File:Catalonia Terrassa mNATEC MaquinaDeVapor ReguladorDeWatt.jpg|thumb|right| A [[flyball governor]] is an early example of a feedback control system. An increase in speed would make the counterweights move outward, sliding a linkage that tended to close the valve supplying steam, and so slowing the engine. ]]

A centrifugal governor was used by Mr. Bunce of England in 1784 as part of a model [[steam crane]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1DNWAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA29-IA1|title=A course of lectures on the Steam Engine, delivered before the Members of the London Mechanics' Institution ... To which is subjoined, a copy of the rare ... work on Steam Navigation, originally published by J. Hulls in 1737. Illustrated by ... engravings|first=Charles Frederick|last=Partington|date=1 January 1826}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-xJFAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA296 |section=A Catalogue of the Models, Machine, &c. |title=Transactions of the Society Instituted at London for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce |volume=XXXXI |date=1813}}</ref> The centrifugal governor was adopted by [[James Watt]] for use on a steam engine in 1788 after Watt's partner Boulton saw one at a flour mill [[Boulton & Watt]] were building.<ref name="Bennett 1979 pp">{{Harvnb|Bennett|1979|pp=}}</ref> The governor could not actually hold a set speed; the engine would assume a new constant speed in response to load changes. The governor was able to handle smaller variations such as those caused by fluctuating heat load to the boiler. Also, there was a tendency for oscillation whenever there was a speed change. As a consequence, engines equipped with this governor were not suitable for operations requiring constant speed, such as cotton spinning.<ref name="Bennett 1979 pp" />

Several improvements to the governor, plus improvements to valve cut-off timing on the steam engine, made the engine suitable for most industrial uses before the end of the 19th century. Advances in the steam engine stayed well ahead of science, both thermodynamics and control theory.<ref name="Bennett 1979 pp" /> The governor received relatively little scientific attention until [[James Clerk Maxwell]] published a paper that established the beginning of a theoretical basis for understanding control theory.

=== 20th century ===
Relay logic was introduced with factory [[electrification]], which underwent rapid adaption from 1900 through the 1920s. Central electric power stations were also undergoing rapid growth and the operation of new high-pressure boilers, steam turbines and electrical substations created a large demand for instruments and controls. Central control rooms became common in the 1920s, but as late as the early 1930s, most process controls were on-off. Operators typically monitored charts drawn by recorders that plotted data from instruments. To make corrections, operators manually opened or closed valves or turned switches on or off. Control rooms also used color-coded lights to send signals to workers in the plant to manually make certain changes.<ref>{{Harvnb|Bennett|1993|pp=31}}</ref>

The development of the electronic amplifier during the 1920s, which was important for long-distance telephony, required a higher signal-to-noise ratio, which was solved by negative feedback noise cancellation. This and other telephony applications contributed to the control theory. In the 1940s and 1950s, German mathematician [[Irmgard Flügge-Lotz]] developed the theory of discontinuous automatic controls, which found military applications during the [[Second World War]] to [[fire control system]]s and aircraft [[navigation system]]s.{{sfn|Bennett|1993}}

Controllers, which were able to make calculated changes in response to deviations from a set point rather than on-off control, began being introduced in the 1930s. Controllers allowed manufacturing to continue showing productivity gains to offset the declining influence of factory electrification.<ref name="Field_2011">{{cite book|title=A Great Leap Forward: 1930s Depression and U.S. Economic Growth |last=Field |first= Alexander J.|year= 2011 |publisher =Yale University Press|location= New Haven, London|isbn=978-0-300-15109-1 }}</ref>

Factory productivity was greatly increased by electrification in the 1920s. U.S. manufacturing productivity growth fell from 5.2%/yr 1919–29 to 2.76%/yr 1929–41. Alexander Field notes that spending on non-medical instruments increased significantly from 1929 to 1933 and remained strong thereafter.<ref name="Field_2011"/>

The First and Second World Wars saw major advancements in the field of [[mass communication]] and [[signal processing]]. Other key advances in automatic controls include [[differential equation]]s, [[stability theory]] and [[system theory]] (1938), [[Frequency response|frequency domain analysis]] (1940), [[Motion control|ship control]] (1950), and [[stochastic analysis]] (1941).

Starting in 1958, various systems based on [[solid-state (electronics)|solid-state]]<ref name="Wireless-World_1960"/><ref name="MBLE_1962_Norbit"/> [[digital electronics|digital logic]] modules for hard-wired programmed logic controllers (the predecessors of [[programmable logic controller]]s [PLC]) emerged to replace electro-mechanical relay logic in [[industrial control system]]s for [[process control]] and automation, including early [[Telefunken]]/[[AEG (German company)|AEG]] [[Logistat]], [[Siemens]] [[Simatic]], [[Philips]]/[[Mullard]]/{{interlanguage link|Valvo (company){{!}}Valvo|de|Valvo}} [[Norbit module|Norbit]], [[BBC]] [[Sigmatronic]], [[ACEC (company)|ACEC]] [[Logacec]], {{interlanguage link|Akkord-Radio{{!}}Akkord|de|Akkord-Radio}} [[Estacord]], Krone<!-- AG --> Mibakron, Bistat, Datapac, Norlog, SSR, or <!-- ABB -->Procontic systems.<ref name="Wireless-World_1960"/><ref name="Akkord_Estacord"/><ref name="Klingelnberg_1967"/><ref name="Parr_1993"/><ref name="Weissel_1995"/><ref name="Walker_2012"/>

In 1959 [[Texaco]]'s [[Port Arthur Refinery]] became the first chemical plant to use [[digital control]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Rifkin|1995|pp=}}</ref>
Conversion of factories to digital control began to spread rapidly in the 1970s as the price of [[computer hardware]] fell.

===Significant applications===
The automatic [[telephone switchboard]] was introduced in 1892 along with dial telephones. By 1929, 31.9% of the Bell system was automatic.<ref name="Jerome 1934">{{Cite book
 | last1 = Jerome
 | first1 = Harry
 | title = Mechanization in Industry, National Bureau of Economic Research
 | year = 1934
 | url = https://www.nber.org/chapters/c5238.pdf
 }}</ref>{{rp|158}}  Automatic telephone switching originally used vacuum tube amplifiers and electro-mechanical switches, which consumed a large amount of electricity. Call volume eventually grew so fast that it was feared the telephone system would consume all electricity production, prompting [[Bell Labs]] to begin research on the [[transistor]].<ref>{{cite book |title=A Century of Innovation: Twenty Engineering Achievements That Transformed Our Lives|last=Constable |first=George|author2=Somerville, Bob |year=1964 |publisher=Joseph Henry Press|isbn= 978-0-309-08908-1}}</ref>

The logic performed by telephone switching relays was the inspiration for the digital computer.
The first commercially successful glass bottle-blowing machine was an automatic model introduced in 1905.<ref>{{cite web
 |title        = The American Society of Mechanical Engineers Designates the Owens "AR" Bottle Machine as an International Historic Engineering Landmark
 |year         = 1983
 |url          = https://www.asme.org/getmedia/a9e54878-05b1-4a91-a027-fe3b7e08699e/86-Owens-AR-Bottle-Machine.aspx
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20171018180627/https://www.asme.org/getmedia/a9e54878-05b1-4a91-a027-fe3b7e08699e/86-Owens-AR-Bottle-Machine.aspx
 |archive-date = 18 October 2017
 }}</ref> The machine, operated by a two-man crew working 12-hour shifts, could produce 17,280 bottles in 24 hours, compared to 2,880 bottles made by a crew of six men and boys working in a shop for a day. The cost of making bottles by machine was 10 to 12 cents per gross compared to $1.80 per gross by the manual glassblowers and helpers.

Sectional electric drives were developed using control theory. Sectional electric drives are used on different sections of a machine where a precise differential must be maintained between the sections. In steel rolling, the metal elongates as it passes through pairs of rollers, which must run at successively faster speeds. In paper making paper, the sheet shrinks as it passes around steam-heated drying arranged in groups, which must run at successively slower speeds. The first application of a sectional electric drive was on a paper machine in 1919.<ref>{{Harvnb|Bennett|1993|pp=7}}</ref> One of the most important developments in the steel industry during the 20th century was continuous wide strip rolling, developed by Armco in 1928.<ref>
{{cite book
|title=The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present
 |last=Landes	
 |first= David. S.
|year= 1969|publisher =Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge
|location= Cambridge, New York
|isbn=  978-0-521-09418-4|page=475
}}
</ref>
[[File:Automated liquid oral dose.jpg|thumb|Automated pharmacology production]]
Before automation, many chemicals were made in batches. In 1930, with the widespread use of instruments and the emerging use of controllers, the founder of Dow Chemical Co. was advocating [[continuous production]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Bennett|1993|pp=65}}Note 1</ref>

Self-acting machine tools that displaced hand dexterity so they could be operated by boys and unskilled laborers were developed by [[James Nasmyth]] in the 1840s.<ref>
{{cite book
|title=Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution
 |url=https://archive.org/details/sciencetechnolog00aemu
 |url-access=registration
 |last=Musson 
|author2=Robinson
|year=1969 |publisher =University of Toronto Press
|isbn=978-0-8020-1637-9
 }}
</ref> [[Machine tools]] were automated with [[Numerical control]] (NC) using punched paper tape in the 1950s. This soon evolved into computerized numerical control (CNC).

Today extensive automation is practiced in practically every type of manufacturing and assembly process. Some of the larger processes include electrical power generation, oil refining, chemicals, steel mills, plastics, cement plants, fertilizer plants, pulp and paper mills, automobile and truck assembly, aircraft production, glass manufacturing, natural gas separation plants, food and beverage processing, canning and bottling and manufacture of various kinds of parts. Robots are especially useful in hazardous applications like automobile spray painting. Robots are also used to assemble electronic circuit boards. Automotive welding is done with robots and automatic welders are used in applications like pipelines.

===Space/computer age===

With the advent of the space age in 1957, controls design, particularly in the United States, turned away from the frequency-domain techniques of classical control theory and backed into the differential equation techniques of the late 19th century, which were couched in the time domain. During the 1940s and 1950s, German mathematician [[Irmgard Flugge-Lotz]] developed the theory of discontinuous automatic control, which became widely used in [[bang-bang control|hysteresis control systems]] such as [[navigation system]]s, [[fire-control system]]s, and [[electronics]]. Through Flugge-Lotz and others, the modern era saw time-domain design for [[nonlinear systems]] (1961), [[navigation]] (1960), [[optimal control]] and [[estimation theory]] (1962), [[nonlinear control theory]] (1969), [[digital control]] and [[Filtration (mathematics)|filtering theory]] (1974), and the [[personal computer]] (1983).