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Seeking the 5 Most Interesting, Amazing or Exciting Industrial Single Board Computer Applications

rscasny

Single Board computers (SBC) are amazing little devices in their own right. They pack a lot of technology in an incredibly small footprint. They are used for all kinds of projects by students, hobbyists and professionals. They have been used gaming, telecom, and other automation applications. They are also used to inspire and teach programming in schools. Over the last few years, I have seen more and more attention paid to using SBCs in industrial applications. I've learned "industrial" in this context means different things to different people. Sometimes it just means a commercial product (e.g., media player, vending machine). I define industrial in a truer sense of the world: in a factory, in a machine, or in the field for control of actuators, etc.

 

I'm looking to get 5 interesting industrial applications of SBCs. Do you have any in mind? If you do, leave a comment and tell me more.

 

Thanks.

 

Randall

--element14 team

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  • What is your definition of a single board computer?

    To me an SBC is a complete computer on one board - with processor, memory and user interface.

    The user interface is the gray area - does it need an HDMI port and a USB host port or is it enough to have a serial port for an external terminal?

    The first SBCs had a keypad and display right on the board - that is very rare these days.

    My first SBC (AIM65) had a full keyboard, alphanumeric display and printer right on the board.

    The SBC application that made the biggest splash here is probably PIK3A. The concept was good enough to be commerialized as PiCade.

    However, it isn't an industrial application.

    The only industrial application we use sometimes at work is an arduino that was part of a project where we sponsored some mechatronics students at a local college to design and build a pneumatic machine to run products through mechanical cycles for accelerated life testing. It doesn't have much of a user interface and the display is mainly just a cycle count, but it might qualify as an SBC by some definitions.

    I think the Beaglebone Blue is one of the top candidates for industrial SBC platforms, although I haven't seen it in anything beyond robots and drones yet.

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  • What is your definition of a single board computer?

    To me an SBC is a complete computer on one board - with processor, memory and user interface.

    The user interface is the gray area - does it need an HDMI port and a USB host port or is it enough to have a serial port for an external terminal?

    The first SBCs had a keypad and display right on the board - that is very rare these days.

    My first SBC (AIM65) had a full keyboard, alphanumeric display and printer right on the board.

    The SBC application that made the biggest splash here is probably PIK3A. The concept was good enough to be commerialized as PiCade.

    However, it isn't an industrial application.

    The only industrial application we use sometimes at work is an arduino that was part of a project where we sponsored some mechatronics students at a local college to design and build a pneumatic machine to run products through mechanical cycles for accelerated life testing. It doesn't have much of a user interface and the display is mainly just a cycle count, but it might qualify as an SBC by some definitions.

    I think the Beaglebone Blue is one of the top candidates for industrial SBC platforms, although I haven't seen it in anything beyond robots and drones yet.

Children
  • in reply to dougw

    I'm happy with your basic definition of an SBC, display optional - a control port will do.

     

    I think the reason that the popular and well known ones don't find many serious industrial applications is that in order to become popular they must be cheap and cover a wide range of applications. This means that they usually skimp on industrial features like long term availability and good real world robustness.

    For example, in industrial applications connectors are a major source of reliability issues and it is very unusual to pick the cheapest with enough pins and an adequate current rating, but to make a cheap SBC this is almost exactly what you do.

    The other issue is that the feature set on an SBC will rarely be a perfect fit, and while you can often stand having some unused hardware, all too often you end up needing an additional board.

    The RPI compute board looks like a reasonable attempt to get round some of these issues but I'm not at all sure how successful it has been.

     

    My use of ready made SBCs is limited to simple test jigs and fixtures, very few have ever made it out into a customer's hands, and those few have been as test or programming aids, not in saleable products.

     

    MK