Concept-Oriented Research and Development in Information Technology

9

Fusion of Control Systems, Computers, and the Real World

Yasushi Fukunaga

Nidec Research and Development Center, Nidec Corporation, Tokyo, Japan

Abstract

The movement toward utilizing information and communications technology (ICT) for control systems began in the early 1960s with the development of computers and computerized communication. This development has been applied in many industries, such as power generation, railroad, steel, and automotive.

Because ICT innovation has progressed so rapidly, CPU performance and memory capacity have quadrupled every 3 years. Thus, the digital units have changed every 15 years. For example, in 1997 the most commonly used unit prefixes were giga and nano, whereas today the units used are tera and pico. Changes in real-world, actual control systems, have not occurred as rapidly as in ICT, and it is said that in this field undergoes a revolution occurs every 15 years. The new ICT era, which is characterized by cloud computing, smartphones (or tablets), and broadband radio networks, began in 2010. This chapter discusses the potential future outlook for real-world control system technology.

9.1 Introduction

Three major groundbreaking changes, social change, industrial change, and information business change, made 2010 a memorable year, as shown in Figure 9.1.

Figure 9.1 Three destructive changes.

Infosociologists (sociologists specializing in ...