The Opportunities Afforded by Embedded Computer Systems for Monitoring and Control of Industrial Processes in Less-Industrialised Countries (TECHNICAL NOTE)

The dramatic changes in integrated-circuit technology over the last two decades have been of great benefit to countries such as Zimbabwe. High volume production of VLSI chips has produced a supply of intelligent, versatile electronic processing devices at very low cost. In particular the facilities of the microcontroller have steadily developed to the accompaniment of a reduction in price. Since, in essence, the microcontroller is a complete computer tailored to control and monitoring operations, one is now provided with a device capable of application to a great variety of industrial and domestic situations. The major challenges lie in the interfacing and programming of the devices, and these are cerebral skills with which many less-industrialized countries are well endowed. The paper examines the opportunities in the embedded-systems area by means of a number of case studies of real industrial problems, whose solution has been achieved through these techniques.