In just a few short years, the world has seen unprecedented shifts in its relationship with technology, prompting a great deal of speculation about the role that automation will play in the evolution of key industries such as manufacturing, construction, and logistics. While AI grabs the headlines, the backbone of most practical applications has been, and will continue to be, industrial PCs.

Industrial PCs are engineered for use in industrial settings, such as manufacturing, building automation, and logistics centers. They are characterized by robust design features such as fanless operation, the ability to operate in extreme temperature ranges, extensive input/output options, and long life cycles.

For all the discussions about automation’s potential to drive economic growth and enhance efficiency through production management, equipment monitoring, and task execution, it must be clarified that the use of industrial PCs across all industries has already had a substantial impact. From manufacturing floors to smart factories, from healthcare facilities to transportation systems, industrial PCs are the backbone of the fourth industrial revolution, also known as Industry 4.0.

Industrial PCs are not a monolith, varying to such an extent that their functions, purposes, deployment viability, and value added to the environments in which they are deployed can often lead to there being such a broad range of functionality in so many spheres, ‘Industrial PC’ is more suitably used as an umbrella term than a proper noun.

Understanding Industrial PCs

At its core, an industrial PC is a ruggedized computing device engineered to withstand harsh environments typically encountered in industrial settings. AAEON, a leading producer of industrial PCs with a track record spanning more than 30 years, tailors its industrial PC product lines to meet various requirements in this field.

Unlike conventional PCs, industrial PCs are designed to operate reliably in extreme temperatures, humidity, dust, and vibration-prone conditions, which is where offerings such as AAEON’s Fanless Embedded Box PC range come in. Engineered for longevity and resilience, industrial PCs developed by AAEON are durable, highly scalable, and suited to extreme environments through temperature tolerances ranging from -40˚C to 85˚C, alongside extended voltage input ranges. They also include over/under-voltage current and short-circuit protection, ensuring immunity to extreme temperature and power fluctuations.

Fanless operation through precise component design ensures continuous operation even in settings where industrial PCs are exposed to dust and other contaminants. This feature ensures enhanced durability, longevity, and performance, making them an essential component in the ecosystem of any 21st century industrial application.

Features and Capabilities:

Industrial PCs come in various form factors, including rack-mounted, panel-mounted, and embedded systems. These devices traditionally required powerful processors to achieve the accuracy in performance needed to execute tasks to a satisfactory standard. As a result, industrial PCs were once both power-hungry and expensive. As premier chip suppliers have gained the ability to develop CPU architecture capable of outperforming older machines while also maintaining the power-efficiency typically associated with much less sophisticated applications.

For example, the introduction of the Intel Atom® processors x7000E Series, Intel® Processor N Series, and Intel® Core™ i3-N305 processors platforms saw low-power CPUs adding an additional benefit to systems integrators, given their low 6W ~ 15W TDPs and low-power standby mode making them ideal for sealed, fanless designs.

For tasks requiring heavy-duty processing power, there are of course still trade-offs, with power consumption and heat generation being much higher than other options. Canceling out such downsides is the degree to which performance levels have increased with the introduction of performance hybrid architecture. The result of this is that even CPU platforms utilized for the purposes of achieving maximum speed and performance often expend less energy than they would using traditional chip designs. This is because the distribution of resources used to execute complex tasks enable the CPU to allocate less power-consumptive operations to the CPU’s efficiency, or Gracemont, cores.

With such advancements, meeting the demands of industrial automation has been made easier, thanks to the very combination of features that make industrial PCs unique.

Key Features

Rugged Construction: Built to endure challenging conditions, Industrial PCs are constructed using high-quality materials to ensure reliability and longevity.

Wide Operating Temperature Ranges

Industrial PCs can operate efficiently across a broad temperature spectrum, from freezing cold to scorching heat, without compromising performance.

Modular Design

Many Industrial PCs feature modular components, allowing for easy customization and scalability to adapt to evolving industrial requirements.

Multiple Communication Interfaces

Industrial PCs offer a plethora of input/output ports, enabling seamless integration with diverse industrial equipment and facilitating communication interfaces to ensure real-time task execution.

Remote Management Capabilities

With remote monitoring and management functionalities, industrial PCs facilitate centralized control and maintenance of industrial systems, reducing the number of machines required to cover industrial workspaces

Prominent Uses and Applications

The versatility of Industrial PCs lends itself to a wide variety of applications across just as many industries. Some notable use cases include:

Manufacturing Automation

Industrial PCs play a pivotal role in optimizing manufacturing processes through real-time monitoring, predictive maintenance, and robotic control systems. AI algorithms running on Industrial PCs enable predictive analytics, minimizing downtime and enhancing productivity. With AAEON, this can be made possible through both the use of its industrial AI@Edge solutions or via its industrial PC range providing broad support for AI expansion.

Smart Agriculture

In the field of smart agriculture, industrial PCs equipped with embedded AI inferencing capabilities, such as those from AAEON’s industrial AI solutions built with NVIDIA® Jetson™ system-on-modules, can facilitate data-driven decision-making to optimize crop yields, resource utilization, and environmental sustainability.

Healthcare Systems

Industrial PCs are increasingly being utilized in medical setting to increase the effectiveness, accuracy, and efficiency of diagnostic equipment and hospital infrastructure. While the fanless design of industrial PCs primarily adds value and longevity to applications due to the protection of key components from contaminants such as dust that comes with it, there are bilateral benefits where healthcare is concerned.

Instead of solely protecting the industrial PC from contaminants, a fanless design decreases the effort required to maintain sterile atmospheres in medical settings, while still providing reliable performance and compliance with stringent regulatory standards. Moreover, SoMs and interfaces that facilitate the use of advanced AI algorithms can grant a greater degree of accuracy to advanced imaging, diagnostics, and patient monitoring applications.

Transportation and Logistics

Industrial PCs power intelligent transportation systems, enabling route optimization, vehicle tracking, and traffic management. While AI models running on industrial PCs enhance safety, efficiency, and sustainability within transportation networks, there has been a shift towards industrial PCs designed specifically for in-vehicle use.

These machines typically retain the wide temperature operation of other industrial PCs, but are designed to conform to various certification standards to ensure they can withstand the added rigors associated with deployment in transportation systems. Among AAEON’s growing transportation-specific offerings, additional protection is commonly offered in the form of MIL-STD-810H standard vibration/shock resistance, UKCA and E-Mark certification, as well as IP65 water and dust ingress protection.

Trends in Deployment

The deployment of Industrial PCs is witnessing several noteworthy trends driven by advancements in AI and automation technologies:

Edge Computing

With the proliferation of IoT devices and AI-powered applications, there is a growing demand for edge computing solutions. Industrial PCs can serve as edge computing nodes, processing data locally to reduce latency, bandwidth usage, and reliance on cloud infrastructure. This has become a relatively standard feature of AAEON’s industrial PC offerings, with wide-bandwidth DDR5 system memory, advanced data acquisition interfaces such as GMSL2, and the accommodation of multiple expansion modules.

Embedded AI

Industrial PCs are increasingly integrating AI capabilities at the edge to enable real-time data analysis, predictive maintenance, and autonomous decision-making. Leveraging its status as an Elite member of the NVIDIA® Partner Network (NPN), AAEON supports the full NVIDIA® Jetson™ SoM roadmap, along with compatibility with the NVIDIA Jetpack™ software development kit to allow multiple advanced AI algorithms to be run simultaneously on the edge.

Interoperability and Connectivity

Industrial PCs are evolving to support seamless integration with existing industrial systems and emerging IoT platforms, making deployment streamlined through retrofitted integration. Standardized communication protocols and open-source software frameworks facilitate interoperability, enabling data exchange and collaboration across heterogeneous environments.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, Industrial PCs represent a cornerstone of modern industrial automation, empowering organizations to optimize processes, enhance efficiency, and unlock new possibilities in AI-driven innovation. As the era of Industry 4.0 unfolds, industrial PCs will remain at the forefront, driving the digital transformation of industrial sectors worldwide. With their rugged design, advanced capabilities, and adaptability to emerging technologies, Industrial PCs are poised to shape the future of automation and AI-enabled industrial systems.

Through their robustness, versatility, and intelligence, Industrial PCs epitomize the convergence of technology, innovation, and industrial growth, ushering in a new era of efficiency, reliability, and sophistication to the industrial landscape.