In order to create a sustainable society where we can live a safe and secure life, we require prompt solutions to issues such as environmental pollution and global warming. The role of industrial and social infrastructure, which forms the basis of people's lives, is becoming increasingly significant.
Fuji Electric aims to offer solutions for overall life cycles of equipment and facilities encompassing the entire production activities of customers based on the three pillars of "stable supply of energy," "realization of energy conservation" and "provision of safety and security" in the field of industrial and social infrastructure. Instrumentation and control technology is a fundamental technology for that purpose. It includes components such as sensor technology, control technology, systematization technology and optimization algorithms, which are organically linked together via a network to offer optimum solutions to customers.
In this special issue, we present our approaches to Instrumentation and control solutions that contribute to industry and society and the latest technologies and components that support them.

Fuji Electric's industrial infrastructure business relates to factories, facilities and industrial complexes, etc., and it aims for its customers to be "smart" based on three pillars: "stable supply of energy," "realization of energy conservation" and "provision of safety and security." We offer solutions to overall life cycles of equipment and facilities encompassing the entire production activities of customers. Fuji Electric positions instrumentation and control technologies as the fundamental ones of the industrial infrastructure business and organically links between equipment and facilities with the control, sensor and network technologies to make it possible to visualize the situation and thus provide solutions. This paper describes the current status and future outlook of instrumentation and control technologies that support these solutions.

Stabilization and sophistication of operation, improvement of energy effi ciency and environmental conservation are common issues shared by customers in various fields. To address these issues, Fuji Electric makes full use of its 60-plus years of experience with instrument to offer instrumentation and control system solutions. In the steel industry, they support stable operation of iron mills, improvement of energy management efficiency and stable production of high-quality products. In the chemical, food and pharmaceutical industries, they facilitate high-mix low-volume production, safe and stable operation, preventive maintenance and ensured product manufacturing records. In addition, they contribute to safe and stable operation and environmental measures in garbage processing plants, boiler facilities and cement plants.

Recently, in the field of plant control, higher-speed control response and high-speed processing of massive data are demanded of drive control systems for improving product quality and stabilization and achieving effi cient operation. Fuji Electric meets these demands by enhancing the functionality of system components and increasing the speed and capacity of networks. Applications include solutions for press machines, steel processing lines and metal rolling mill. In steel processing lines, the maintenance tools are integrated by making use of the inverter transparent connecting function which allows remote monitoring and operating inverters in order to streamline its maintenance.

Since the 1970s, when commercial nuclear power generation established, Fuji Electric has been contributing to safety and security for radiation (radioactivity) by developing and providing radiation management solutions for humans and objects in radiation handling facilities and the facilities themselves together with the surrounding environment. Ever since the accident at the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011, needs for radiation measuring instruments have greatly increased. Fuji Electric has thus been continuously developing and off ering radiation measuring instruments as well as radiation management solutions for recovery and reconstruction from the earthquake disaster. In addition, radiation management solutions conforming to the national legislation of each country and international standards have been rolled out for overseas radiation handling facilities.

For stable operation and improved efficiency of plants, facility maintenance is essential. In particular, prevention of accidents in aged facilities that have long been operated is the highest-priority issue. Fuji Electric provides life cycle services intended for facilities including power generation, electric distribution, production and utility facilities. The main technology in basic maintenance planning contains a diagnostic technique, life prolongation and update of facilities, such as high-voltage circuit breakers, transformers and rotating machines. In addition, Fuji Electric is working on service solutions with strengthening the service quality and field maintenance technology and establishing global call centers and logistics centers.

For safe and optimized control of factory equipment and plants, various control technologies has been developed. Fuji Electric is developing technologies for analyzing massive data measured in plants and making eff ective use of them. Fault diagnosis technology by means of multivariate statistical process control can be used for recognizing faults in manufacturing processes accurately to improve the operation rate. In addition, quality estimation technology based on the partial least squares method using manufacturing process information leads to improved quality and yield. Furthermore, log analysis technology by pattern mining can be used for analyzing past data and making tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge, thereby assisting operators.

In control systems supporting production sites, information integration with a host system, integration with a safety-related system, strengthening of security, and the like are progressing. In such a situation, on the other hand, there is much equipment which is approaching an updating time, and it is required for succession of established property, technical innovation, and correspondence to an international standard. Fuji Electric has marketed the latest version V8.0 of information and process control system“MICREX-NX”with many delivery track records onto the market. It is a system which supports the stability and safety of plant operation with Adoption of wide screen and Windows7, The screen design which increase visibility and operability, alarm management, security devices and safety instrumented system which are able to meet the international standards, and so forth.

The“MICREX-VieW XX”small- and medium-scale monitoring and control system allows users to continue using the screen and program assets of existing facilities and realizes a connection with existing networks in updating of customer facilities. Screens and programs can be efficiently created by the vertically and horizontally integrated engineering environment. In addition, the compact, high-performance and high-reliability controller with abundant built-in communication interfaces and high-speed, high-capacity dual I/O bus allows users to build a dual system with no common portion. Continuous operation is possible even in a multiple-fault mode and high reliability is realized.

The small- and medium-scale monitoring and control system“MICREX-VieW XX”is equipped with the latest functions as follows. The“XOS-3000”operator station achieves high operability with a multi-window platform MPF. The“XDS-3000”database station is capable of data analysis using relational database (RDB) and dual configuration with no data missing. The“XES-3000 engineering station allows high-efficiency, high-quality engineering by the integrated TAG and variable database and simulation feature that eliminates the need for the actual equipment.

The“MICREX-SX”Series of integrated controller line allows engineering consistently conforming to the international standard IEC61131-3 from small- to large-scale systems. This is expected to accelerate componentization of software and dramatically improve the efficiency of control system development. Various types of control ranging from machine control to multi-axis, high-speed and high-precision motion control can be realized by connecting with Fuji Electric’s drive products via a network. As main examples, motion control in combination with a servo amplifi er and vector inverter and steel process line control are described.

Fuji Electric has been developing gas analyzers that contribute to overall energy conservation of processes. Cross stack laser gas analyzers are capable of high-speed response because they are directly installed in fl ues for measurement and are suited for control aimed at energy conservation. Fuji Electric has developed a technology that allows a device to measure two components, though this was conventionally limited to one component, and commercialized the world’s first cross stack laser gas analyzer for two-components (O2+CO): “ZSS”. Instrumentation air is available as the purge gas for O2 measurement, and the analyzer features improved environmental resistance, or resistance to inhibitory substances in the measured gas. Application to the converter and combustion control processes of steel plants is expected.

Recently, studies have come to be increasingly energetically conducted on structure health monitoring (SHM), which involves diagnosis of the structure performance of buildings based on response waveforms to earthquakes and microtremors. Fuji Electric has commercialized a vibration sensor that applies micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and a primary diagnosis monitoring system that makes use of the sensor. Use of the MEMS-applied vibration sensor instead of a servo acceleration meter allows building of low-cost systems. At present, for the purpose of practical application of the SHM system, Fuji Electric is conducting research and development for estimating an index (feature quantity) that represents the soundness of buildings.

As a basic function of EMS, visualization of energy including electric power by measurement is necessary. While measuring equipment prices are falling and options are becoming increasingly diversified, the installation and wiring costs increase when points of measurement are distant, and this is a factor hindering the introduction of power measurement systems. To address this issue, Fuji Electric has developed and released clamp-on wireless power sensors“FeMIEL-SC”and“FeMIEL-WL”that help to reduce work cost by using wireless communication. Stabilization of the system, which has adopted 920 MHz-band specified low-power radio waves with a frequency band different from that of general-purpose wireless LAN and the successive transmission function to avoid missed measurement due to communication errors, has been demonstrated by field testing.

To improve the energy efficiency of air conditioners in data centers, in which heat generation is dramatically increasing due to improved performance and higher-density of servers, systems that make use of outside air cold, which is natural energy, are being adopted. Fuji Electric has developed a hybrid air conditioner“F-COOL NEO”combining indirect external air cooling, which is less susceptible to the effect of dust and corrosive substances contained in external air, and vapor compression refrigeration cooling. F-COOL NEO automatically controls the operation ratio of the two types of cooling according to external air temperature and a cooling load. As a result of evaluation, it has been verified that high efficiency can be attained of the amount of power consumption throughout the year approximately 1/3 that of general air conditioners.