What is an Industrial PC and its Important Role in Industrial Computing?
An industrial PC is a type of computer designed to handle a wide range of factory and industrial workloads such as machine automation, manufacturing equipment, and next-generation autonomous robotics. The ability to operate with great reliability in the hardest industrial conditions is one of the key advantages of industrial PCs.
Most industrial PCs have similar tough design features, such as fanless cooling, cableless interfaces to reduce moving parts, and dust and water resistance to some degree. These fundamental properties are among the most important benefits of industrial PC because they provide reliability and efficiency for many industrial automation systems that cannot afford downtime.
What Is the Difference Between an Industrial PC and a Commercial Desktop PC?
Due to its deployment use cases, an industrial PC differs from a commercial desktop computer in several ways. Although the internal components of an industrial PC appear to be like those of a desktop computer (CPU, Memory, Storage), an industrial PC is distinguished by its rugged design features that are intended for durability and precision in industrial automation devices.
As IoT, Big Data, and Machine Learning advancements place increased demands on industries such as manufacturing and automation, data and its value continue to shift between IT and OT efficiencies. More and more gadgets are being connected to machines in this era of transformation, known as "industry 4.0," putting tremendous pressure on computing systems to be versatile in their specific duties and workload performance.
Industrial PCs, for example, are now being used as platforms for local or edge workload aggregation and convergence. In other words, industrial computing systems must now be able to handle a wide range of data inputs that provide critical information for real-time decision-making. As a result, industrial PCs can support a wide range of input and output (I/O) ports.
When integrating computing hardware, there are several design aspects that are critical to the performance and stability of industrial PCs that you should compare and assess to achieve the best total cost of ownership.
Wide Temperature, Ruggedized & Effective Thermal Design
Neousys systems feature exclusive mechanical design and an efficient thermal pad for heat dissipation that effectively removes heat from the CPU and other components. The efficient heat transfer allows Neousys systems to operate with 100% CPU load under extreme conditions (maximum temperatures ranging from -40°C to 70°C) and therefore maximize processing power.
In addition, the system offers plenty of I/O connections and expansions, making it compatible with various interfaces and devices without the need for customization.
Rugged and durable, fanless with true wide temperature operation with excellent processing power make Nuvo embedded series PCs the ideal choice for extreme industrial applications.
Neousys' effective thermal design ensures reliable wide temperature range operation while core technologies play important roles in Neousys system’s thermal capability.
What are Benefits of Neousys’s Ruggedized Fanless Embedded PC?
Industries and Applications that Benefits from Industrial PCs
The industrial PC is more or less a purpose-built PC that is designed to survive in industrial working environments and suitable for a variety of field deployments such as food/ beverage/ chemical factory automation, military/ defence deployments, maritime seaport/ container/ straddle carrier applications, mining fleet/ robotic agriculture, railway inspection, medical applications, etc.
These industrial PC were created to be deployed into challenging places to durably and reliably operate on a long term basis. Deployments to fields such as maritime seaport automation (high humidity and salinity), military defence applications (extreme shock and vibration), environment field monitoring/ industrial autonomous vehicles (high temperature, dust, weather exposure) and even in medical healthcare applications (noiseless operation) where absolute silence is required for solution operations.
Find out more on our wide range of Rugged Wide Temperature Fanless Embedded PCs