Assembly Automation: Volume 14 Issue 1

Profibus: the German fieldbus standard

Alleyne Leach

Outlines the development of the German fieldbus standard, Profibus,which has become internationally accepted. Describes its technicalspecification and the international standards…

Jaguar—just‐in‐time production line

Jaguar Ltd

A look at Jaguar’s new state‐of‐the‐artassembly line at its Browns Lane Plant. Describes the installation of the newproduction line which took only three weeks and the advantages…

Welding: friction takes the plunge

Wayne Thomas

Examines the development of friction plunge welding, a new technique forjoining dissimilar material combinations. Describes the principles of thiswelding method and gives its…

Autos carry the can controller area network [CAN] for industrial applications

S B Khoh, R T McLaughlin

Describes the CAN [Controller Area Network] standard forlinking microcontrollers and shows how it could be used for industrialapplications. Outlines how CAN was developed for the…

French fast food takeaway

Anna Kochan

Takes a look at the French Army’s new F60 million meals packagingfacility at Angers. The roboticised assembly line is intended to producemilitary rations at a rate of 24 per…

Hart (R) Opens up “smart” options

Mark Howarth

Outlines the development of the HART communications protocol for“smart” instruments. Describes how the performance of thestandard analogue 4‐20mA current loop can be enhanced and…

Lonworks—solutions in silicon

Jack Hollingum

Examines the development of the LonWorks [short for Local OperatingNetworks] fieldbus system which has been designed to be suitable for awide variety of applications including…

Management of a catering facility

Ricardo Hitec

Outlines how an airline is introducing robot technology to its traysetting area and a general management and scheduling software suite tocontrol its catering operations. Describes…

Profibus—a user’s view

Graham Lockyer

Discusses the benefits that drive‐controlled AC motors havebrought to automated plants and how these can be enhanced by the use of aPROFIBUS [the PROces FieldBUS] communications…