Industrial data processing is a branch of applied computer science that covers the area of design and programming of computerized systems which are not computers as such — often referred to as embedded systems (PLCs, automated systems, intelligent instruments, etc.). The products concerned contain at least one microprocessor or microcontroller, as well as couplers (for I/O).
Another current definition of industrial data processing is that it concerns those computer programs whose variables in some way represent physical quantities; for example the temperature and pressure of a tank, the position of a robot arm, etc.
Famous quotes containing the words industrial and/or data:
“The clock, not the steam-engine, is the key-machine of the modern industrial age.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“This city is neither a jungle nor the moon.... In long shot: a cosmic smudge, a conglomerate of bleeding energies. Close up, it is a fairly legible printed circuit, a transistorized labyrinth of beastly tracks, a data bank for asthmatic voice-prints.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)