Automation meets autonomy

Over decades, automation has featured as one of the cornerstones of industrial production. The success factors of classic automation are as follows: rule-based processes, rigid structures, field buses, PLC‑logic and precisely pre-programmed reactions – thereby enabling deterministic optimisation of the processes. When it comes to the future, this idea falls somewhat short. Because automation does not stand still – far more, it changes fundamentally.

The core of the debate is not whether automation is still up to date. Quite to the opposite: Automation is timeless – but rethinking its design is now topping the agenda. Modern production systems face challenges that can no longer be mastered by fixed and rigid processes alone. Autonomous functions, situational learning and adaptive decisions will shape and determine what is needed in the future. In this way, autonomy is becoming the decisive component of automation driving its extension forward.

The integration of autonomous principles into traditional industrial processes calls for change on several levels. Rule-based principles – a basic requirement of industrial control – must be combined with technologies that are capable of making situational decisions. Digitalisation is making powerful inroads into automation: AI‑processes, data rooms, semantic models and digital twins form the foundation for systems that no longer just react, but act.

Research impulses – such as the architecture model developed by DFKI (German Reasearch Center for Artificial Intelligence) for future automation systems – demonstrate how autonomous software agents and digital images will be able to interact. This makes it clearly evident that in future, automation must be understood less as a rigid construct and more as a living interaction between data, decision-making systems and flexible modules.

Autonomy is not replacing conventional automation – but is far more its logical development.

The All Electric Society forms the system that is viewed holistically within the context of sustainability. Electrification, digitalisation and automation are converging to form an integrated overall system. Energy, mobility, industrial value creation – the need for autonomous, data-driven systems is emerging everywhere. Consequently, automation is becoming cross-sectoral, networked and software-driven.

The digital twin will represent a central element, as it enables assets to be digitally mapped across their entire life cycle – and therefore to be automated and managed autonomously. In future, this will also involve components that were previously assigned a purely passive role. Connectors, for example, can draw on concepts such as HARTING's Connectivity Instance Shell to digitally record statuses and loads and integrate them into automation scenarios – thereby creating an entirely new dimension of what is considered "automatable".

Connecting you to the All Electric Society. HARTING connects data and power – efficiently, sustainably, future-proof.

The discussion about autonomy in industrial automation leads surprisingly precisely to one historical example: the chess automaton from 1769 (known as The Mechanical Turk, or The Automaton Chess Player).

Automation has always been an attempt to build something that acts independently. The original developer of the chess machine also followed exactly this dream of mankind. His goal: A system that can react situationally to moves that cannot be predicted.

What was not mechanically possible back then is now possible thanks to AI and digitalisation in networked architecture models. And the parallel lies precisely therein:
Autonomy is created by introducing intelligence into architectures – previously in the form of human input and presence, today in the form of artificial intelligence.

This makes a centuries-old idea tangible: Automation is no longer just about following rules, but about understanding context, learning and making decisions. Autonomy is therefore not a move away from automation, but represents its logical next step.

Consequently, automation is becoming the basic technology of an electrified, digitalised and sustainable future. While it remains indispensable, further thinking is called for. It is not the past of automation that determines its significance, but its ability to continuously renew itself. This issue of tec.news describes precisely this transformation: How automation is emerging from the rigid logic of the past and evolving into the dynamic, intelligent and autonomous foundation of the All Electric Society.

Today, the Automaton Chess Player of 1769 is often regarded as a technical trick or even a deception or scam of sorts. But this view distorts what was really the issue back then: It was one of the earliest serious attempts to develop an autonomous automaton.

The designer wanted to create a system that

• acts independently,

• reacts to situational moves and

• makes flexible, intelligent decisions.

In this way the chess machine picked up on an idea that we encounter again today: Automation needs intelligence if it is to extend beyond rigid processes. What could not be realised mechanically was compensated for internally by human intelligence – a principle that can be translated surprisingly accurately into today's AI‑architectures.

Today, we no longer have to put a human being into an automated machine. Electrification, digitalisation and AI make it possible to implement autonomous functions artificially – which shows just how visionary the approach of 1769 really was.