Demystifying the future growth of instrumentation industry

The Chinese instrumentation market in 2011 may not have the gratifying growth rate of 2010, but it will still be a steady growth trend. In the first five months of this year, the investment in instrumentation and Wenjian Machinery Manufacturing reached 11.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 39%. Customs data show that the first quarter of instrumentation exports was 9.441 billion US dollars, an increase of 40.2%. The amount of imports in the first quarter was US$17.77 billion, a year-on-year increase of 35%.

Driven by the strong market demand and guided by the national macro-control policies, China's instrumentation industry has shown a rapid and healthy development trend. According to the actions of major instrument companies around the world, it is not difficult for us to find that digital, intelligent and networked instrument products will become the mainstream of the market. In addition to the further improvement of products, engineering and project integration technologies, software development, application and maintenance services will become new growth points for the industry.

The emergence of digital technology has increased the measurement control accuracy, sensitivity, speed, and reliability of analog instrumentation by several orders of magnitude, laying a good foundation for the automation of measurement control. With the introduction of computers, the function of the instrument has undergone a qualitative change, from the measurement of individual parameters to the measurement of the characteristic parameters of the entire system, from simple reception and display to control, analysis, processing, calculation and display output, from single use. The measurement by the instrument is converted into measurement by the measurement system. In the 1990s, the breakthrough in measurement control and instrumentation technology was an improvement in the degree of intelligence in instrumentation; the availability of a large number of DSP chips greatly enhanced the digital signal processing capabilities of instrumentation; the development of micro-machines made the instrumentation more robust. Data processing capabilities and image processing functions; Fieldbus technology is a network communication technology that has been rapidly developed in the 1990s for various field automation devices and their control systems, and Internet and Intranet technologies will also enter the field of control. Modern instrumentation products will be developed in the direction of digitization, networking, intelligence, and integration. Interdisciplinary integrated design and high-precision manufacturing technologies will enable it to acquire higher-speed, more sensitive, reliable, and simpler analysis. , detection, control of the object's full range of information.

Specifically, the international development trend of measurement control and instrumentation can be summarized as the following main features:

The continuous improvement of technical indicators is just like the olympic slogan of the Olympic Games is higher, faster, and stronger. Measurement and control and instrumentation are eternal pursuits in improving the technical indicators and functions of measurement control, and the technical indicators of measurement control and instrumentation. It is a quantitative indicator of the level of measurement control and instrumentation in a country. To expand the detection range, for example, the voltage is from nanovolt to 1 million volts; the resistance is from superconductivity to 1014 ohms. In order to improve the measurement accuracy index, the industrial parameter measurement has been increased to 0.02% or more, the aerospace parameter measurement has reached more than 0.05%, and the accuracy of measurement and the accuracy achieved by scientific instruments have kept pace with the times. In order to increase the sensitivity of the measurement, it is more to single particles, molecules, and atomic levels. Improve measurement speed (response speed), static 0.1 ~ 0.02ms, dynamic 1us. To improve reliability, general requirements are 2 to 50,000 hours, and high reliability requires 250,000 hours. Stability (yearly variation) <±0.05% (high precision instrument) or <±0.1% (general instrument). To improve the environmental adaptability of products, according to the requirements of different users, adaptability under conditions of high temperature, high humidity, high dust, corrosion, vibration, impact, electromagnetic fields, radiation, deep water, rain, high voltage, low pressure, etc.

A large number of new scientific research achievements and high-tech measurement control and instrumentation are used as the first-hand tools for mankind to understand the world and transform the world. It is the most basic tool for human beings to carry out scientific research and engineering technology development. Humankind learned early on the principle that “workers must be good at doing things, they must first sharpen their tools.” New scientific research achievements and discoveries such as information theory, cybernetics, system engineering theory, micro and macro world research results, and a large number of high and new technologies such as weak Signal extraction technology, computer software and hardware technology, network technology, laser technology, superconductivity technology, nanotechnology, etc. have all become important drivers for the development of measurement and control and instrumentation science and technology. Instruments and meters have not only become high-tech new products themselves, but also have integrated new devices and systems using new principles, new concepts, new technologies, new materials, and new processes.

Micro-miniaturization of measurement units, intelligent measurement and control, and instrumentation have made extensive use of new sensors, large-scale and ultra-large-scale integrated circuits, computer and expert systems, and other information technology products, and have continued to be miniaturized and intelligently developed. "Chip-type instrumentation," "chip lab," "chip system," etc., the miniaturization and intelligence of measurement units will be a long-term trend. From the perspective of application technology, the embedded connection and networking application technologies of micro-miniaturization and intelligent measurement units are valued.

The scope of measurement and control extends to three-dimensional and globalized, and the measurement control is systematically and network-based. With the established areas monitored and controlled by instruments and meters, the three-dimensional, global, and even planetary development has continued, and instrumentation and measurement and control devices are no longer in a single position. In the form of devices, it will inevitably develop towards the systematization and networking of the measurement and control devices. For example, for a large-scale hydropower station measurement and control system, there are thousands of sensors that only measure the safety of the dam. In addition, the detection control points (I/O monitoring and control points) for the status and water level of each generator set will exceed 10,000 points. For normal power generation and power transmission, the measurement and control devices at each measurement and control point must form an organic measurement and control network system. Another example is the satellite measurement and control system. Thousands of sensors are deployed on the launch vehicle. Various observation and control devices on the satellite constitute a complete automatic measurement and control system, and then form a wide-area measurement and control system with multiple ground station measurement and control systems.

A large number of portable, hand-held and even personalized instrumentation have developed With the development of production and improvement of people's living standards, people are increasingly concerned about their own quality of life and health standards, and instruments for measuring the quality of various commodities and foods closely related to people’s lives. Instruments, various medical instruments for the prevention and treatment of diseases are an important trend for future development. The on-site and real-time onlineization of scientific instruments, especially the health conditions and disease warning instruments used by families and individuals, will be greatly developed.

The application status of domestic instrumentation technology and the latest development speed is relatively slow. At present, the status quo of China's instrumentation industry is complete, with a certain industry base. In developing countries, it is "upstream", but there is a clear gap between it and developed countries. Responsibility, mechanism, economic and scientific and technological level, management, and talents are all constraining conditions. Enterprises are “multiple, scattered, and weak”, technological development capacity is not strong, and product stability and reliability are inevitably high. Capital and import are the main factors, and the medium- and low-end products are mainly Chinese-funded enterprises. Due to the comparative advantages of market size, labor costs, and industry base, some large and wide-ranging products will become the main force for production and export.