Yokogawa periodically publishes the Yokogawa Technical Report, which contains articles that take a detailed look at the technologies employed in Yokogawa's products. At this site you will find links to all of the reports that have been published since 1997 as well as links to PDF files containing the full text of selected articles from each issue.
Research and Development ―Prompting a change in human behavior―
Be a Brave Idiot, Not a Timid Sage
- Koji Ikuta*1
*1 : Professor, Department of Information Physics and Computing
Graduate School of Information Science and Technology,
The University of Tokyo
Driving Innovation for Supporting the Social Infrastructure of a Sustainable Society
- Toshiaki Shirai*1
*1 : Innovation Headquarters
Yokogawa has a mission to supply products and solutions supporting the industrial social infrastructure, and aims to create businesses contributing to achieving a sustainable society from a long-term perspective, based on its core competencies of measurement, control and information. Through studying social megatrends, Yokogawa recognizes that harmonizing machine and human systems and helping to enhance human capability are promising directions for its R&D. Yokogawa sets an innovation vision in line with the above observations, and plans to create new technologies and markets contributing to achieving the goal.
Cyber Perception Concept Innovative Operation of Automation Systems Focusing on Human Nature
- Nobuo Okabe*1
*1 : Research & Development Division, Innovation Headquarters
Efficient and safe operation of automation systems requires the knowledge and experience of experts, and the transfer of knowledge and experience from generation to generation is indispensable for its accumulation. That’s why the aging of operators and engineers is an important issue in industry today. The Cyber Perception Concept aims to resolve the transfer issue, enhance human adaptability and resiliency, and improve plant efficiency and safety, using cutting-edge technologies. The goals of the concept are those of making knowledge and experience reusable, improving the efficiency and safety of human work, and avoiding risks in human work. This paper describes the research activities undertaken to achieve this concept, including those of anomaly detection using corrosion sensing images, and industrial augmented reality (iAR).
Technologies for Using Batteries in Energy Management Systems
- Katsuya Ikezawa*1
- Takao Maruyama*2
*1 : Market Development Division, Innovation Headquarters
*2 : Green Factory Promotion Dept., IA Marketing Headquarters
Society increasingly requires better energy management systems (EMS). Home energy management systems (HEMS) are spreading, and building and community energy management systems (BEMS/CEMS) are now globally being evaluated for practical usage. As an electrical energy storage device for the EMS, lithium-ion batteries are attracting attention. Measuring battery conditions such as their state of charge (SOC) and state of health (SOH) is essential for their effective use. This paper describes the roles of these batteries in social systems, and the keys to effectively operating the batteries.
Neuroscience and Measuring Brain Functions
- Hideaki Tomisawa*1
*1 : Innovation Headquarters
Neuroscience, the study of brains and the mind, has still many fundamental questions to be answered, as its targets, including molecules, cells, networks, and individuals, are complex and extensive. Meanwhile, neuroscience has been rapidly developing thanks to the recent remarkable progress in technologies for clarifying human genomes and the noninvasive measurement of brain functions. This paper first introduces strategic brain-science projects in several countries, and then shows examples of brain function measurement and analysis which use the magnetoencephalograph (MEG). Advances in measurement and analysis technologies for brain functions are needed in various research areas aiming to empirically decipher brains and the mind. This paper also introduces some novel technologies for intracerebral process estimation and intracerebral network verification.
- Yosuke Ishii*1
- Kenji Ooishi*1
- Yasuki Sakurai*1
*1 : Research & Development Division, Innovation Headquarters
Plant operators are being forced to handle more advanced and complicated systems with fewer people because of the aging workforce problem. This problem has become a worldwide epidemic and has been inducing critical accidents caused by human errors. Yokogawa has been evaluating a series of Proof of Concepts (PoC) for new operator assistance systems. In particular, the concepts applying Augmented Reality (AR) technology have been highly anticipated by the customers, as AR enhances operator’s visual perception, which is the most relied upon of the five human senses. This paper introduces Yokogawa’s new operator assistance concepts, based on human-centered design and AR, as well as introducing activities for launching the products, and solutions for achieving above stated goals.
Efficient Plant Modeling Methods Using Probabilistic Models
- Akio Nakabayashi*1
- Shouta Ukai*1
- Hidehiko Wada*1
*1 : Research & Development Division, Innovation Headquarters
In the process industries, applications based on plant models such as real-time estimation of product properties, advanced process controls, and optimization of operating conditions are becoming more important for improving plant operations. Although the solutions based on plant models are very effective, development and maintenance of plant models are not easily achieved. Engineers need to resolve many issues, for example, removal of outliers and selection of model structures, explanatory variables and the order of dynamics. In addition, because plant characteristics change over time, it is necessary to validate and reconstruct current plant models. To overcome these difficulties, Yokogawa has developed a new efficient plant modeling method. Its key idea is that of formulating a modeling procedure applying probabilistic models, and of dealing with parts of the procedure as numerical problems. This paper introduces an overview of the method and gives the results of its numerical experiments.
Development of Lithium-ion Battery Deterioration Diagnosis Technology
- Shuhei Okada*1
- Satoshi Yoshitake*1
- Yuki Tominaga*2
- Akihiro Anekawa*2
*1 : Market Development Division, Innovation Headquarters
*2 : Automobile R&D Center, Honda R&D Co., Ltd.
Deterioration of lithium-ion batteries is observed after repeated charge/discharge cycles or long term storage. The deterioration often appears as a decrease in capacity or increase in internal impedance of the batteries. Measuring alternating-current resistance (ACR) using a frequency response analyzer (FRA) is a well-known method for battery deterioration analysis. This paper introduces a newly developed Yokogawa technology for estimating ACR through any waveforms. This technology implies the possibility of in-situ battery deterioration diagnosis. To verify the feasibility for vehicles, actual voltage and current waveforms of running vehicles were used.
Laser Spectroscopic Multi-component Hydrocarbon Analyzer
- Yasuhiko Mitsumoto*1
- Masaya Ooyama*1
- Chikara Yatabe*2
- Nobuhiko Kanbara*2
*1 : Core Technology Development Dept., Foundation Technology Development Center, IA Platform Business Headquarters
*2 : Research & Development Division, Innovation Headquarters
Yokogawa has developed a prototype of a laser spectroscopic multi-component hydrocarbon analyzer, which can measure the components simultaneously, precisely and rapidly. This analyzer uses a semiconductor laser with a widely tunable wavelength range called micro electro mechanical systems-vertical cavity surface emitting laser (MEMSVCSEL), and a newly developed spectrum analysis algorithm. This can be applied to the realtime process control. Yokogawa has conducted a field test for measuring the calorific value of the process gas in a calorie adjustment process of town gas as one of its applications. This report outlines this analyzer and introduces the results of the field test.
- Yoshihiro Kumagai*1
- Satoshi Matsuura*1
- Takashi Yari*2
- Nozomi Saito*2
- Kazuo Hotate*3
- Masato Kishi*3
- Mikio Yoshida*4
*1 : Research & Development Division, Innovation Headquarters
*2 : Structural Mechanics Research Laboratory, Nagoya Research & Development Center, Technology & Innovation Headquarters, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.
*3 : Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Systems, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo
*4 : Aircraft Materials Engineering Division, RIMCOF Research Center of Advanced Metals and Composites, The Materials Process Technology Center (SOKEIZAI Center) Currently, Civil Aircraft Engineering Service Co., Ltd.
Yokogawa Electric Corporation, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., the University of Tokyo, and the Materials Process Technology Center (SOKEIZAI Center) are developing a new fiber-optic distributed strain and temperature sensor for aircraft structural health monitoring (SHM) using Brillouin optical correlation domain analysis (BOCDA) technology. The BOCDA is suitable for aircraft SHM because it can measure the distribution of strain and temperature simultaneously at high speed and with high spatial resolution. A prototype on-board system was developed and mounted on a business aircraft in order to evaluate it during actual aviation. Changes in strain and temperature on the aircraft during ascent have been successfully measured. This paper outlines the prototype and explains the results of the evaluation.