IPC know-how interpretation

What is an industrial computer?

An industrial computer is a specific type of computing system used to manage various factory and industrial workloads in machine automation, manufacturing equipment, and new-age autonomous robots.

Industrial PCs drive efficiency and insight at the heart of Industry 4.0. Designed and manufactured to withstand the challenging physical conditions of various industrial environments, industrial PCs are a high-performance, scalable upgrade to traditional single-purpose PLCs. By consolidating a large number of workloads in a common industrial PC, points of failure and overall hardware footprint can be reduced. Powerful localized computing and low-latency communications generate real-time actionable insights, inform inferential analytics applications, and enable complex automation.

What are the main benefits of industrial computers?

Workload integration: The industrial computer has the processing ability to complete multiple tasks at the same time, reducing hardware occupation

IoT Connectivity: Rich wired I/O and wireless connectivity technologies combine traditional and cutting-edge devices, and data transmission from remote and mobile environments.

Reliability: Intelligent design and rugged features enhance the IPC's ability to withstand the harsh and challenging physical elements encountered in a variety of industrial environments

Scalability: The industrial computer adopts a modular design, allowing interchangeable expansion options.

Security: Trusted Platform Module with TPM 2.0 standard supports hardware boot security, encryption and network security protection.

Intelligent automation: Powerful processing and performance acceleration options enable real-time inferential analytics and machine learning for richer, data-driven autonomy at the rugged edge.

How does the industrial computer adapt to the harsh environment?

Most industrial PCs feature a rugged design philosophy, utilizing fanless cooling, cable-free connections to eliminate moving parts, and resist some level of dust and water intrusion.

Industrial automation equipment has a long lifespan. Can the life of the industrial computer be comparable to it?

Many IPC components can be used for 15 years, providing a long-term embedded computing roadmap that is supported by major semiconductor designers. This is especially important for plants that may not have the ability to upgrade or retrofit with the latest automation technology every few years.

Are industrial PCs designed for newer Industry 4.0 cyber-physical systems or legacy equipment?

Both rely on rich I/O integration, multi-protocol support, and upgradeable features, and the industrial computer seamlessly integrates legacy equipment with the latest equipment to form a fast-responsive IIoT edge network. As facility operators converge OT with IT, upgradeable and patchable industrial computers provide increased reliability and security for traditionally vulnerable legacy equipment.

Is the industrial computer compatible with pushing data to the cloud network?

Industrial personal computers can serve as cloud gateways for industrial IoT edge networks. By effectively delegating selected IoT applications to cloud resources, industrial computers can free up processing power for tasks that require local computing for real-time operations. Cloud access also simplifies application upgrades and security patching for embedded systems with restricted access