Origin 1
A year and a half ago (March 2017), Professor Guo Wei, the deputy editor-in-chief of China Mechanical Engineering, invited me to be a reviewer for the journal and commissioned me to write an article on "Intelligent Manufacturing from the Perspective of XX Theory". At that time, I proposed the direction of writing an article on "Intelligent Manufacturing from the Perspective of Automation Theory".
While conceiving this article, I discovered that control principles can be applied to all aspects of intelligent manufacturing. The principle of negative feedback, in particular, can be applied from macro-level corporate strategy and business management to micro-level equipment control, from long-term product lifecycle closed-loop control to timely closed-loop control of individual devices. Closed-loop control based on control principles is evident in all aspects of intelligent manufacturing.
I had so much to think about that I didn't know where to begin, so I haven't written anything yet.
Origin 2
In mid-October (2018), Mr. Zhu Duoxian from Langguang Innovation presented me with a copy of the book "Machine Intelligence : From Digital Workshop to Intelligent Manufacturing," co-authored with Ms. Zhao Min. After reading through the entire book, I have many aspects I would like to write about.
I enjoy reading the articles by Zhu Duoxian and Zhao Min. Their articles are rich in information and very inspiring. Many of my views were inspired by reading Zhu Duoxian's articles. For example, the core viewpoint of my book, "A New Starting Point for Made in China: The Service Industry Revolution Ushers in Service Industry Civilization," was derived from reading one of his articles, which prompted me to think about it from the perspectives of industrial history and division of labor. Later, I compiled this viewpoint into the book.
In the book * Ingenuity*, there is a passage about CPS:
The "Cyber" in Cyber-Physical System comes from the root word "Cybernetics," which originates from the Greek word meaning "the art of steering," encompassing aspects such as regulation, manipulation, management, command, and supervision.
The term "cyber" was first used in scientific terminology by Norbert Wiener, the American mathematician and founder of cybernetics, in his 1948 book "Cybernetics" (translated into Chinese as "控论"). As a result, many people refer to Cybernetics as "控论" (Kong Kong Lun), but "控论" does not fully express the meaning of Cybernetics. It is recommended to transliterate it as "赛博学" (Sai Bo Xue).
Zhu Duoxian believes that the meaning of Cybernetics extends far beyond the field of control itself, a view I agree with. However, my view differs slightly: control (automation) theory itself can be applied to many fields, but traditional disciplines have constrained automation.
The plan is to use this as the core viewpoint to elaborate on the application of control theory in various aspects of intelligent manufacturing and to write a series of articles.
Cybernetics is essentially the abstract application of control principles to other fields.
The book " Ingenuity " mentions:
In his book "Cybernetics," Wiener proposed the concept of "closed-loop feedback, the magic of self-stabilizing systems that enable them to 'self' adjust their behavior and learn."
Cybernetics greatly facilitated the popularization of closed-loop feedback. Because of its significant influence, many believe that Wiener proposed closed-loop feedback. Even the bestselling book of the last century, *The Fifth Discipline*, attributed it to Wiener. The book records the following:
Systems thinking is a practice of "seeing the whole picture." ... It originates from two sources: the concept of "feedback" in cybernetics and the engineering theory of "servo-mechnaism."
The text of *The Fifth Discipline* suggests that closed-loop control originated from cybernetics. However, the principle of closed-loop control was actually first proposed by Maxwell. Because cybernetics enjoys a higher academic standing and mentions feedback and control, the following is quoted from *Cybernetics*.
We decided to call this entire field of control and communication theory, which is relevant to both machines and animals, cybernetics. The word is derived from the Greek word for "helmsman," and in choosing it, we commemorated the first important paper on feedback mechanisms, Maxwell's 1868 article on governors, and the Latin word for governor is derived from a misreading of "helmsman." We also want to mention the fact that the ship's steering gear is indeed one of the earliest and most developed forms of feedback mechanisms.
From a developmental perspective, the development of closed-loop control principles preceded the development of cybernetics. Cybernetics is Wiener's summary and application of classical control theory to other fields. [In fact, cybernetics is considered a classic work of mathematics.]
Let's look at the structure of cybernetics:
Chapter 1: Review and summary of trends in scientific thought and methodology. Through an analysis of the relativity and limitations of Newtonian mechanics, it points out that "even in gravitational astronomy there is a gradually decaying friction process, and no science completely conforms to the strict Newtonian model."
Chapter Two: It establishes a statistical theory for cybernetics.
Chapter 3: The statistical mechanics problem of time series is proposed.
Chapters Four and Five analyze the stability of feedback systems and the characteristics of computer memory, computation, and control devices, and discuss certain mechanisms and pathological issues of nervous system activity.
Chapter Six introduces the concepts of group scanning and multi-level feedback systems, discusses certain issues in visual physiology, and addresses the problem of using one sense to compensate for the deficiencies of another.
Chapter 7: In conjunction with the discussion of the reliability of electronic computer operation, this chapter explores the possibility of studying these mechanisms from a cybernetics perspective.
Chapter 8 uses cybernetics to analyze issues of social development.
In summary, cybernetics largely abstracts the principles of closed-loop control, applying them to a wider range of fields. Therefore, cybernetics is considered a fundamental discipline. Its applications extend to animals and machines, including control and communication. Prior to cybernetics...
1. Watt improved the steam engine by adding a feedback mechanism;
2. In 1868, Maxwell of Great Britain published "On Speed Controllers," pointing out that speed controllers should not be studied in isolation, but rather the instability of control must be analyzed from the perspective of the entire system, establishing the system's differential equations to analyze whether instability will occur. Maxwell's paper is recognized as the beginning of the principles of automatic control.
3. In 1875, Routh proposed the algebraic stability criterion;
4. In 1932, Nyquist proposed the Nyquist stability criterion;
5. In 1936, A.C.Callender and A.Stevenson et al. in Britain proposed the PID control method; and PID control is the most classic control method.
In 1848, Wiener published "Cybernetics," which formed a complete classical control theory and marked the birth of classical control science.
In the field of control, practice and control principles came first; the control principles were further abstracted into a science and applied to the control and communication of animals and machines, thus becoming a discipline.
The practice of automation is the foundation for the birth of cybernetics. Based on this foundation, it was abstracted into a discipline that is applied in multiple fields and became cybernetics. Cybernetics uses the principles of automatic control (feedback mechanism) to apply to fields such as control and communication.
Cybernetics represents engineering information mathematically.
Cybernetics is the study of the general laws governing control and communication within animals (including humans) and machines , focusing on the mathematical relationships involved in these processes. It is an interdisciplinary field that comprehensively studies the control, information exchange, and feedback mechanisms of various systems, spanning numerous disciplines including human engineering, control engineering, communication engineering, computer engineering, general physiology, neurophysiology, psychology, mathematics, logic, and sociology.
Cybernetics mainly includes: information theory and automatic control theory.
Information theory is mainly a statistical theory about the processing, transmission and storage of information in various pathways (including machines and biological organisms).
Wiener viewed the information flow received and processed by a control system as a time series (such as the rapidly changing voltage series in a telephone line). The information received and processed by a control system exhibits a certain degree of randomness and a statistical distribution. From the perspective of time series, a control system may receive and process a large number of different time series, each with a certain probability of occurrence. This necessitates that the control system be able to receive and process the statistics constituted by these time series, where each time series is a component. This solves the mathematical representation of the statistical properties of the information flow received and processed by the control system.
With statistical data on a time series, we can infer and predict the future from past time series statistics; and when some information is interfered with by noise, restoring the original information flow through technical means is also a statistical method and a form of prediction.
The theory of automatic control systems is mainly feedback theory, which includes the study of the general laws of regulation and control in machines and objects (nervous system, endocrine system and other systems) from a functional point of view.
Automatic control systems typically aim to achieve negative feedback.
For example, on a ship, the steering gear directs the rotation of the steering wheel onto a device connected to the rudder handle. This device adjusts the valves of the steering gear, causing the rudder handle to turn in the direction these valves are closed. This rotation of the rudder handle returns the other end of the valve adjustment device to the center position, thus mirroring the angular position of the steering wheel as the angular position of the rudder handle. Reducing the steam flow to the other valve increases the torque required to reach the desired position on the rudder handle, thereby achieving feedback.
