Many of the electronic and electrical engineering students, including me, doubt that Arduino will be useful for us in the industry. And because of that most of them do not try to study Arduino in deep. To solve this confusion I hereby listed 5 industrial applications in Arduino.
Although we can not see Arduino in electronic products commonly, it is very useful and popular in the industry with these 5 things.
- Fast prototyping.
- Industrial process improvement.
- Data acquisition.
- Manufacturing industry. (3D printers and CNC machines.)
- Learning and teaching electronics.
1. Fast prototyping.
prototyping is a very important part of product development and the manufacturing industry. Prototyping of a product consist of,
- defining the functions of the end product.
- implementing them using prototyping methods.
- testing the prototype with the end-user.
All these things can be done fast and low cost with Arduino.
Developing an electronic/mechatronic product consumes a lot of time and money. But with the already available libraries shields and other components of Arduino, prototyping of the same product can be done fast.
So this is a huge advantage for the industry.
2. Industrial process improvement.
Arduino is popularly used to control manufacturing systems such as CNC and 3D printers.
A great example for this is Boeing automated honeycomb repair system, which is developed by Boeing company using Arduino to improve their industrial process.
Even Arduino can be used to monitor industrial processes using IoT technology, which can be executed fast and cheaply.
3. Data acquisition.
Now the world is data-driven. Data collection is a very important task in every industry.
Arduino is one of the easiest ways to capture data from sensors and other input devices. And also data can be stored on an SD card or cloud storage using the Arduino.
Arduino has a variety of sensors that can be attached to it for collecting data. Some of them are listed below.
- Humidity sensor
- Rain sensor
- PIR sensor
- Proximity sensor
- Color sensor
- Heart rate sensor
4. Manufacturing industry. (3D printers and CNC machines)
Arduino is a very cost-effective way of controlling CNC and 3D printers in the manufacturing industry. And also we can build them very fast because it has a range of libraries for controlling various types of motors such as servo and stepper motors.
As I know, one of the most popular projects among Arduino beginners is the CNC machine built using old DVD players. If you fine-tune it correctly, even it can be used to manufacture a quality product.
5. Learning and teaching electronics.
Arduino is a popular learning and teaching tool all around the world. It is very easy to teach the basic concepts of electronics, coding, microcontroller programming, robotics, using the Arduino.
Lot of Universities around the world use Arduino to teach the following courses.
- Internet of Things
- Embedded system design
- C programming
- Wiring of circuits
- Circuit designing
- Motor controlling
Conclusion
Arduino is no more a tool for hobby project creators. It is widely spread in the world of the industry now. So if you are a university student or someone already working in the industry, it will be a great advantage for you to have a good knowledge of Arduino.