Incorporating radio frequency communication into a computer integrated manufacturing test facility

Computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) systems require a large amount of data to be transferred between different elements of the system. The large number of communication lines required for manufacturing systems makes the system highly inflexible and difficult to maintain. Radiofrequency communication systems can alleviate much of the cable congestion and make the system easier to reconfigure. A CIM system has incorporated the use of radio controlled programmable logic controllers (PLC) to demonstrate the feasibility of such a system. The arrangement has been configured to perform various tasks. Configuring the system was found to be similar to configuring other PLC systems but without the need for communications lines between the PLCs