Industrial Communication Systems

68-1

68.1 Introduction

In automation, mechanical units are more and more replaced by electronic components. ey con-

tain sensors, actuators, and information computing systems. e goal is to achieve higher process and

product quality. is means, e.g., to increase the performance by implementing more functionality.

Systems become interconnected, which causes increased complexity—something that cannot easily

be handled with traditional technological approaches. It is necessary to rethink existing approaches

and nd new solutions. ese can be found in statistical models, hierarchical models, and bionic mod-

els. is chapter reviews recent resea