industrial computersIn the harsh environments such as factory floors in voluminous business industries where the dangers like shock, vibration, dust, mist, splash, RFI, EMI, and other such conditions are great, the normal office computers cannot be used. So at industrial level industrial computers are introduced to tackle the problems mentioned above. The industrial computers can be referred to as embedded systems dedicated to work in hash environments. Industrial computers are developed in many configurations based on various CPUs, I/O interfaces, and Displays. The selection of an industrial computer depends upon the industry to be targeted. For example military, aerospace industries, and the medical fields require critical functions and applications.

Industrial Computer boards

Industrial computer boards generally represent the single board computers (SBCs) and need to be rough and tough to work in critical but harsh environments. The boards contain serial and parallel interfaces for communication with other <.a href="/device">devices, microprocessor, and memory chip.

Industrial Computer Specifications

The specifications include bus specifications, storage, processors, and peripherals.

Bus Specifications for Industrial computers

PCI, compact PCI, PCMCIA, VME, VXI, ISA, EISA, and PC / 104 are the common buses used in industrial computers or in SBCs. PC / 104 is now the standard for embedded industrial computers.

Processor standards for Industrial Computers

The major concern with processor at industrial level is the processor speed. Great deals of processors are available for industrial computers and selected according to the speed. These include Intel® Pentium® (I, II & III), Intel386TM & 486TM families, Intel® CeleronTM, Motorola (68HC11, 680 Family, & PowerPCTM), AMD (AthlonTM, DuronTM, & K6), VIA Cyrix® (MIITM & III), National Semiconductor® Family, UltraSparcTM Family, and DEC Alpha Series.

Industrial Computer Peripherals

Industrial Computers allows all sorts of Peripheral devices required for maintaining or enhancing the computer's functionality. Input Devices include mouse, keyboards, joysticks, trackballs, etc. Displays include CRT, LCD, Touch screens, Flat panel displays, etc. there are four choices for display resolution. These are VGA (640 X 480), SVGA (800 X 600), XGA (1024 X 768), and SXGA (1280 X 1024). Also allows other important devices such as printers, plotters, CD-ROM drives, Floppy drives, disk drives, and storage devices.

Industrial Computer Storage Specifications

Storage specifications of the industrial computers focus on the RAM, Flash, CompactFLASH , and Hard Drive capacity. RAM being the computers main memory must be quite faster. Industrial computers provide support for changing or enhancing the storage functionalities by increasing any sort of memory mentioned above.

Industrial Computer Categories

Depending upon the mounting or configuration style the industrial computers can be categorized as follows. · Panel mount Industrial Computers · Rack mount Industrial Computers · Portable Industrial Computers · Notebook Industrial Computers · Desktop Industrial Computers Panel Mount Industrial Computers contain Flanges like a projecting flat Rim to mount to the panel. Portable and notebook computers are in compact form can be folded like a briefcase. These contain integral displays and I / O interfaces. Desktop industrial computers are mounted like general-purpose desktop computers but with support for rugged and harsh industrial environments.

Industrial Computing and Communication

In a bigger picture the industrial computing is based on client / server computing. Industrial computers support number of protocol standards for communication. The commonly used protocols are Fieldbus, CANBus, GPIB, Parallel and serial interfaces, HART®, LonWorks®, P-Net, ControlNet, AS-I, Interbus-S, Sensoplex, Seriplex, DT-Connect I & II, and Beckhoff.