by Tesla
Tablet PCs are playing a growing role in helping workers monitor industrial processes as they move around a factory. Smart watches may soon prove equally useful.
To showcase the application potential of smart watches, Tesla, a company that enables real-time mobile SCADA access to industrial communications platforms using OPC UA technology and the Android operating system, recently participated in a demonstration with several German organizations.
By downloading the company’s TeslaSCADA program on a smart watch, researchers were able to monitor and control automated processing without an extra development environment. The demonstration proved that all functions performed with a mobile computer or tablet can now be operated equally well with a smart watch.
The advantage of the standardized OPC UA interface and the simple human-machine interface of a smart watch is its flexibility and hands-free access to real-time information.
Workers can receive an optical signal as well as a haptic signal, a vibration that provides reliable feedback on system states, on their wrist. With a finger, alarms can be acknowledged and new parameters can be set, such as adjusting the speed of a conveyor belt.
To read the complete article and watch the demonstration video, go to http://teslascada.com/index/smart_watch_meets_smartfactory