Automated instrumentation and control systems and scientific instruments occupy half of the total instrumentation and measurement control in both production value and market, and are the two pillars of instrumentation and measurement control systems. Due to the limited time available for the speech, let us focus our attention on the future development of these two types of instruments.

The focus of future developments in automated instrumentation and control systems should be:

1. Functional safety

An important development in functional safety in recent years has been the introduction of a large number of functionally certified instruments to the market. In order to gain a favorable position in the competition, almost all instrument manufacturers conduct functional safety research.


2. Automation instrumentation and enterprise informationization

Automated instrumentation technology includes information acquisition, processing and application. Enterprise informationization is actually the integration and integration of enterprise information. To this end, automated and systematic information models must be used to simplify, rule, and abstract information in order to make the most efficient use of information. This is a basic work in the field of automated instrumentation and an important means of unifying information.

3.Wireless communication

The rapid development of industrial wireless communication technology is a prominent highlight in the field of automated instrumentation. It is characterized by diversified technical solutions, rapid increase in participants, and the establishment of professional organizations. The introduction of a variety of wireless demonstration systems, measuring instrument prototypes, will become the hot spot of the world's major automated instrument exhibition.

4. Integration of global information and life cycle information of automated instrumentation engineering projects

This is the full interoperability of automated instrumentation systems. Interoperability is hierarchical, and implementation requires a lengthy process. In recent years, the publication of the IEC62424 standard, the expansion of InTools tool software functions, and the introduction of interoperable standards for control systems and field instrumentation layers are an important landmark in development.

5.System maintenance and instrument diagnosis

System maintenance and instrumentation diagnostics are receiving increasing attention from users, manufacturers and researchers. It is divided into four levels, the diagnosis of production processes, the diagnosis of production equipment, the diagnosis of automated control systems and the diagnosis of field instruments. The diagnosis of the production process is in principle not in the category of automated instruments, but the exchange of diagnostic information involves an automated instrumentation system. For the monitoring of production equipment, the diagnostic instrument system has launched new products. The diagnosis of the automatic control system is usually a module or a function of the equipment management software in the control system, which is responsible for controlling the real-time diagnosis and predictive maintenance of the system itself and the field instruments. The diagnosis of field instruments is difficult, and the maintenance period is determined by the loss or fixed time of the smart meters.

6. Standardization

Standardization has played an important role in the history of the development of automated instrumentation, and will play a major role in catching up with the world level of China's instrumentation products in the future. In the new economic era, there is a large demand for information interface standards. Its common feature is that there are many standardization schemes at the same technical level. Now we can set standards for high-tech new products and completely change the concept of standardization.

7.Control network

In the next few years, network control and network instrumentation will be the focus of automation instrument development. The development direction is to greatly increase the speed, simplify the complexity of installation and debugging, expand wireless functions and develop network technology.

Today, the trend of instrumentation and measurement control development is: facing the stability, reliability and adaptability requirements of products; the technical indicators and functions are continuously improved; the new scientific research results are adopted first; the high-tech is widely used; And the measurement and control unit is becoming more and more miniaturized and intelligent; it requires the instrument and the measurement and control unit to be used independently, embedded and networked; the scope of instrument measurement and control is extended to three-dimensional and globalized; the measurement and control function is developed to be systematic and networked; Hand-held and even personalized instruments have been developed in large numbers.


The technical features are: comprehensively synthesize various new technologies, and innovate and develop new weak signal sensitivity, sensing, detection and fusion technologies based on the research of instrument-related types of sensors, components and materials and technologies, material atomic and molecular level detection. Technology, complex analysis of combined sample technology, life science in situ, in situ, real-time, online, high sensitivity, high-throughput, high-selectivity detection technology, create a variety of new types of testing instruments; combined with system theory, control On the basis of the development of industrial automation measurement and control online analysis and control, in-situ analysis and control, high reliability, high performance and high adaptability, innovative development of industrial automation instrumentation and control systems; combined with life sciences, The development of human science, the development of medical diagnosis and treatment of health monitoring, early diagnosis and treatment, non-destructive diagnosis, non-invasive and low-invasive direct diagnosis and treatment, precise positioning of treatment technology based on the development of medical instruments; while tracking new subject areas and various application areas Develop and develop a variety of dedicated, fast, automated inspection and measurement technologies and special Instrumentation.


In the future, we should pay attention to the following aspects:


1) Precision testing equipment


The current era has entered a new stage of molecular and atomic analysis and detection, and the development of micro-nano technology has directly promoted the rapid development of precision testing instruments. Special attention is paid to MEMS/NEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems/Nano-Electro-Mechanical Systems) test instruments, scanning probe microscopes represented by scanning tunneling microscopes and atomic force microscopes, and a series of SPMs based on the basic principles of STM/AFM, such as New developments in such instruments as magnetic microscopes and electrostatic force microscopes.


2) Analytical instrument


Optical trapping is a new type of optical micro-operation technology. It focuses a beam of light with a high numerical aperture objective lens into a micron-scale spot that forms a gradient to capture and move tiny particles. This technology is widely used in various microscopic fields of research.


The micro chromatograph will be developed very quickly. C2V has introduced the world's smallest and fastest hand-held gas chromatograph. The mainframe is only 1248460mm, and the column module size is 6010012.5mm. It can complete the analysis of the main components of natural gas in 10-30 seconds.


The miniaturization of NMR has made significant progress in recent years. The University of Neuchatel in Switzerland has developed a high-quality factor for the RF planar microcoil used in the microfluidic chip NMR full analysis system. The required sample volume is only 1-100 nanoliters. The desired signal-to-noise ratio can be obtained in a matter of seconds. NMR miniaturization should be a development direction worthy of attention. ,


Optical frequency combb spectroscopy is another important instrument technology that has been developed recently. It can detect many different gases with high sensitivity in a very short time and will play a role in clinical diagnosis. Important role.


3) Spectral analysis equipment


In the past, spectral analysis instruments were mainly used in basic research, mineral analysis, and product quality monitoring. It is worth noting that a new development trend is due to the urgent needs of human survival and development, while the new technological achievements provided by the development of computer hardware and software, microelectronics, computational mathematics, and micro-devices make spectroscopy technology and instruments to biology, environment, and medical care. The rapid expansion of other fields, regardless of theoretical research, technology development and instrument innovation, has developed significantly and will develop faster in the future.


4) Photon imaging instrument


A new discipline of biomedical photonics that combines photonics and life sciences has grown rapidly with the development of laser, electronics, spectroscopy, microscopy, and fiber optics. A number of new scientific instruments have emerged. The application of these instruments not only enriches the understanding of the interaction mechanism between light and biological tissues, but also promotes the invention of various new biological research instruments and medical diagnostic instruments. Photon imaging technology mainly includes diffuse optical tomography, fluorescence imaging, coherence tomography, photoacoustic imaging and the like. Optical coherence layer image (OCT) combines confocal microscopy and low coherence light heterodyne detection technology, which is a two-dimensional or three-dimensional imaging technology based on one-dimensional optical low-coherence reflection measurement technology.