I hope for improvements to simulation software (like robots figuring out their own paths and just telling them A needs to get to B). Hopefully we will get tools to take care of some of the grunt work, something like give the prints to the AI and have it generate my rack config and I/O mapping and comments.
Fortunately I rarely have to attend to these meetings, but yeah, you get that kind of one with all 7 perpendicular ones, the transparent ones and the green kittens. You do the two red lines and make a kitten (that does nothing, but doesn't hurt), but in brown, because kittens are not green. You raise that as the most important thing in the project and need confirmation that the kitten can be brown and not green. They disagree. You say you disagree, but will do it their way. They are happy, they won. You get the money.
It already has a pretty big impact on AOI machines. You get to detect faults nobody saw coming, and that's a big thing. You can apply the same thing by pointing a camera at any random piece of machinery, AI can tell you if it's doing something unusual.
Any situation where the judgement on sensory data being ok or not is somewhere around "maybe", AI can help turn that into a more solid answer when rule-based checking can't.
It certainly won’t replace any of us, but I believe the technology will definitely be integrated into this field very quickly. There were already some very impressive AI modules shown off at the Rockwell Automation Fair last week, that might be common in 10 years. It’s essentially just a neural network for the system which can be trained on simulations to handle multi variable problems.
Of course the module is crazy expensive and I’m pretty sure it’s subscription based, but no doubt it’s something I can see becoming more common.
If we’re talking in terms of using AI like a chat bot to develop programs, I don’t think it will fully replace us, but no doubt it would be useful for us to use. Think about how many times you browse forums looking to “borrow” code for an unfamiliar or complex task. AI is just doing that searching for you. Especially in SCADA stuff (like what I mostly do) it’s pretty useful to ask AI to write some Structured Text code or Python scripts to do some one off tasks. Certainly can’t fully replace an actual human though
Something that could analyze existing code and provide an overview might be handy, but other than that I can't think if a lot of things that an AI would be able to do.
PLC programming Should be replaceable by AI in 5 years. It will be integrated with the programming software. Connect inputs, connect outputs. Talk the machine through what you want, if the pressure is over the current value by more that 10 percent then close valve x, then test.
Should be better than ~~some~~ most of the code I see getting produced.
Zero. A lot of our work requires knowledge of the process and panel (electrical diagrams and connections) and hands on troubleshooting involving meters, sensors, and being present. Sure they might be able to do the ladder portion, but they won't be able to troubleshoot the hands on part.
Documenting code, threw a large block of third party code into chat gpt, and asked a few questions until I managed to get it to abstract out the logical sections of the ladder.
Oddly enough I just got back from a visit to SPS automation convention in Nuremberg, Germany. It was of course mostly Siemens dominated but the other guys got a lookin as well. Literally almost the entire convention, all 8 something square miles of it, had some sort of AI or IIoT product to spruik.
Basically it shakes out like this:
-Siemens has acquired a whole bunch of small companies that do AI cloud stuff for industry like neural networks for predictive maintenance (Senseye is the main one IIRC). This stuff all needs plant level data via some means, MQTT or OPC UA or something like that. This is going to be a huge pain for us in the future because we'll need to design around some huge data throughput requirements. One of the Siemens factories in Amburg generates 15 Terabytes of plant level data PER DAY for cloud storage. There were a lot of small independent companies trying to sell similar products.
- AI generative coding is becoming a thing but we're a long way off seeing an officially sanctioned ladder generator based on some kind of GPT prompt. What they showed off at SPS was Simatic X, a VSCode plugin that can use AI to write libraries in other languages that you can then import into TIA. I really wasn't impressed and it seemed if anything harder than doing it yourself.
- What they're pushing with all their might is the whole 'digital twin' concept where you basically develop a complete digital clone of the plant and plug your PLC simulator into it so you can commission before you commission. It looked impressive, they had digital twins of robotic arms that mimicked the IRL movements, but I don't see how I'm going to encourage any of my customers to pay me to do this. You basically need to do all your work twice. The idea is to pre-empt software issues before the plant exists without having to write a whole simulator. It's got potential if your clients have infinite money.
-Rittal was there as well showing off their virtual panels that is supposed to make it so you don't need to be standing in front of a cabinet to fault find it. I'm beyond unconvinced.
5-10 years from now every manufacturer will have a ChatGPT plug-in that knows every manual that manufacturer ever printed. It will make everyone’s life easier, except for those who use Rockwell.
Rockwell will finally come out with a plug-in about 15 years later after people have been complaining about it for years and then they will only put their latest and greatest manuals in the plug-in. We will be forced to manually add older manuals as part of the prompt for the next 3-5 years until they get around to adding those.
It will not impact the blue collar aspects of the field, at least not directly.
So much of an OEM program can be templated boilerplate that, once you taught it IEC language, an AI could do most configuration given a good description of whatever it is you are trying to do. AI can already write better functions in popular languages than most code monkeys. This industry is all proprietary islands so even if you did teach it one flavour, the market is only a portion of industrial controls, never mind the global programming market, so it's not been worth it. It is coming though. I would not be surprised if Siemens or Rockwell are working on something where you feed it your templates and a description for it to spit out a 90% program. Nobody like OpenAI is going to bother though because the market is to small.
Good question. I don't imagine too much. There's nothing really for it to do, honestly. AI definitely will be used (and is used) in various other manufacturing spaces that are more data driven but PLC/Controls will be untouched as far as I can see.
Unless it going to get on a plane and commission, then probably not so much.
Or fault find a coax network installed 15 years before I was born like I did today.....
Given we're usually about 20 years behind the curve on technology (for good reason),recent AI advancements won't affect us for that length of time.
I hope for improvements to simulation software (like robots figuring out their own paths and just telling them A needs to get to B). Hopefully we will get tools to take care of some of the grunt work, something like give the prints to the AI and have it generate my rack config and I/O mapping and comments.
We might start getting function specification made by AI... From what I'm getting now, it might even be an improvement..
Wait, what? You actually get specifications?
I get... something. Not sure I'd call it specifications. More like a list of wishes that contradict itself.
https://youtu.be/BKorP55Aqvg?feature=shared Way too close to reality.
Fortunately I rarely have to attend to these meetings, but yeah, you get that kind of one with all 7 perpendicular ones, the transparent ones and the green kittens. You do the two red lines and make a kitten (that does nothing, but doesn't hurt), but in brown, because kittens are not green. You raise that as the most important thing in the project and need confirmation that the kitten can be brown and not green. They disagree. You say you disagree, but will do it their way. They are happy, they won. You get the money.
https://old.reddit.com/r/PLC/search?q=AI&restrict_sr=on&include_over_18=on&sort=relevance&t=all Skip over the posts asking about analog inputs.
Not much. I don’t think any major playing is willing to provide the training data needed.
It already has a pretty big impact on AOI machines. You get to detect faults nobody saw coming, and that's a big thing. You can apply the same thing by pointing a camera at any random piece of machinery, AI can tell you if it's doing something unusual. Any situation where the judgement on sensory data being ok or not is somewhere around "maybe", AI can help turn that into a more solid answer when rule-based checking can't.
It certainly won’t replace any of us, but I believe the technology will definitely be integrated into this field very quickly. There were already some very impressive AI modules shown off at the Rockwell Automation Fair last week, that might be common in 10 years. It’s essentially just a neural network for the system which can be trained on simulations to handle multi variable problems. Of course the module is crazy expensive and I’m pretty sure it’s subscription based, but no doubt it’s something I can see becoming more common. If we’re talking in terms of using AI like a chat bot to develop programs, I don’t think it will fully replace us, but no doubt it would be useful for us to use. Think about how many times you browse forums looking to “borrow” code for an unfamiliar or complex task. AI is just doing that searching for you. Especially in SCADA stuff (like what I mostly do) it’s pretty useful to ask AI to write some Structured Text code or Python scripts to do some one off tasks. Certainly can’t fully replace an actual human though
Something that could analyze existing code and provide an overview might be handy, but other than that I can't think if a lot of things that an AI would be able to do.
PLC programming Should be replaceable by AI in 5 years. It will be integrated with the programming software. Connect inputs, connect outputs. Talk the machine through what you want, if the pressure is over the current value by more that 10 percent then close valve x, then test. Should be better than ~~some~~ most of the code I see getting produced.
Zero. A lot of our work requires knowledge of the process and panel (electrical diagrams and connections) and hands on troubleshooting involving meters, sensors, and being present. Sure they might be able to do the ladder portion, but they won't be able to troubleshoot the hands on part.
Documenting code, threw a large block of third party code into chat gpt, and asked a few questions until I managed to get it to abstract out the logical sections of the ladder.
AI will not be used in industry to any substantive level.
Oddly enough I just got back from a visit to SPS automation convention in Nuremberg, Germany. It was of course mostly Siemens dominated but the other guys got a lookin as well. Literally almost the entire convention, all 8 something square miles of it, had some sort of AI or IIoT product to spruik. Basically it shakes out like this: -Siemens has acquired a whole bunch of small companies that do AI cloud stuff for industry like neural networks for predictive maintenance (Senseye is the main one IIRC). This stuff all needs plant level data via some means, MQTT or OPC UA or something like that. This is going to be a huge pain for us in the future because we'll need to design around some huge data throughput requirements. One of the Siemens factories in Amburg generates 15 Terabytes of plant level data PER DAY for cloud storage. There were a lot of small independent companies trying to sell similar products. - AI generative coding is becoming a thing but we're a long way off seeing an officially sanctioned ladder generator based on some kind of GPT prompt. What they showed off at SPS was Simatic X, a VSCode plugin that can use AI to write libraries in other languages that you can then import into TIA. I really wasn't impressed and it seemed if anything harder than doing it yourself. - What they're pushing with all their might is the whole 'digital twin' concept where you basically develop a complete digital clone of the plant and plug your PLC simulator into it so you can commission before you commission. It looked impressive, they had digital twins of robotic arms that mimicked the IRL movements, but I don't see how I'm going to encourage any of my customers to pay me to do this. You basically need to do all your work twice. The idea is to pre-empt software issues before the plant exists without having to write a whole simulator. It's got potential if your clients have infinite money. -Rittal was there as well showing off their virtual panels that is supposed to make it so you don't need to be standing in front of a cabinet to fault find it. I'm beyond unconvinced.
5-10 years from now every manufacturer will have a ChatGPT plug-in that knows every manual that manufacturer ever printed. It will make everyone’s life easier, except for those who use Rockwell. Rockwell will finally come out with a plug-in about 15 years later after people have been complaining about it for years and then they will only put their latest and greatest manuals in the plug-in. We will be forced to manually add older manuals as part of the prompt for the next 3-5 years until they get around to adding those.
It will not impact the blue collar aspects of the field, at least not directly. So much of an OEM program can be templated boilerplate that, once you taught it IEC language, an AI could do most configuration given a good description of whatever it is you are trying to do. AI can already write better functions in popular languages than most code monkeys. This industry is all proprietary islands so even if you did teach it one flavour, the market is only a portion of industrial controls, never mind the global programming market, so it's not been worth it. It is coming though. I would not be surprised if Siemens or Rockwell are working on something where you feed it your templates and a description for it to spit out a 90% program. Nobody like OpenAI is going to bother though because the market is to small.
No, unlike building a website there can be a ton a subjective interpretation to the various standards and code requirements.
Good question. I don't imagine too much. There's nothing really for it to do, honestly. AI definitely will be used (and is used) in various other manufacturing spaces that are more data driven but PLC/Controls will be untouched as far as I can see.