Sensors get smart

Automation experts will demonstrate typical applications that use Smart Sensors as the essential building blocks to deliver the data needed for a fully-connected and safe Industry 4.0 environment. In Industry 4.0, the sensor links to the machine, system, factory and the entire value-creation chain and provides for transparency in production and logistics.

Sick will explore with visitors how their user-specific applications can more easily be developed and quickly implemented in Industry 4.0. Intelligent devices including sensors, encoders, cameras and auto-identification systems enable data to be collected, communicated and shared over networks.

In Industry 4.0, sensors can perform more extensive analysis, automatically adapt to changes, provide real-time condition monitoring, and remotely solve complex tasks within a larger manufacturing network.  Visitors will discover how companies of different sizes can benefit from easier user-programmability and achieve the complete integration of sensors into the cloud.

Seb Strutt, senior product manager for SICK UK said: “Industry 4.0 is an exciting new frontier for factory, logistics and process automation. We often think of 4.0 as a big concept, yet actually delivering its full potential begins with very localised and distributed applications powered by the intelligence embedded in smart devices. 

“At the conference, SICK automation experts will show how Smart Sensors are the essential building blocks driving this change, especially when linked with the growing potential presented by user programmability and software architecture.  

“We’ll be discussing how, to successfully exploit the opportunities of Industry 4.0, our aim is to make it as easy as possible for our customers to integrate, customise and connect both hardware and software to address their specific needs.”