Programming skill is one of the essential skills for a successful Engineer to use the new technology in their field of engineering. It is only a defined knack of writing the English-like coding for solving mathematical or engineering problem. Various programming skills include computer programming, Computer Numerical Control (CNC) programming, Robot Programming, Ladder Logic Programming etc. All engineering disciplines like Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, Electronics, Communication, Aeronautical, Automobile, Mechatronics, Instrumentation and Control etc involves problems of analytical or logical or graphical or control in nature. All these problems can be solved by the engineers by writing the computer programs or using software for the respective application in their branch of engineering. New learners of engineering may think, programming knowledge is required only for computer the Computer Science and Information Technology but their applications are mainly on computer system programming and database management system.
1. Computer Programming
The fundamental knowledge to write a computer program is to understand the method of writing instructions or commands sequentially. The knowledge of writing sequence of commands is improved by developing algorithms or flowchart for simple mathematical problem. But a computer program can be written using one of the programming languages which are nothing but writing the coding in English like language. But every computer program should be translated to the computer understandable form (object program) and the computer will develop an executable program for your coding.
The program coding is written based on the nature of the problem with the statements or commands in the correct logical sequence to obtain the desired results. Note that computers are extremely stupid and they do exactly what you instruct them to do. For example you give bottle of shampoo and instruct to take bath; it does not know how to take bathe. Instead you give the instructions for bathing like, wet hair with water, apply shampoo, rinse, repeat, wet hair, lather, rinse, repeat, wet hair, repeat, wait, dry hair with towel and stop, the bathing will be completed successfully.
All beginners of programming will write computer program for simple mathematical or analytical problems in any one of the programming languages. FORTRAN, Basic, Pascal, C, C++, Java, Python are the commonly used for computer programming, among these languages C is popularly used to solve problems of analytical or graphical in engineering applications.
All beginners of programming will write computer program for simple mathematical or analytical problems in any one of the programming languages. FORTRAN, Basic, Pascal, C, C++, Java, Python are the commonly used for computer programming, among these languages C is popularly used to solve problems of analytical or graphical in engineering applications.
The objective of this article is to bring out a few areas of applications of programming skill in Mechanical engineering and Robotics and thus all students of engineering will realize the importance of programming in their respective branch of engineering. In order to understand the art-of-programming, you need to think to instruct a child to get a physical work done and you don’t need any special skill or talent required for traditional dancing or singing or painting or gymnastics. But programming skill requires a skill of craftsmanship to start the work from a blank of raw material and stop the work after creating an object, like the one we do in carpentry or metalworking. Whatever the language used to write the program, the methodology of developing the program remains the same. The difficult part of programming is mostly related to the complexity of the problem or a large programming project and your ability to split the problem in to small program modules and organize them for the desired result.
2. CNC Programming
For any automated engineering system like a Computer Numerical control (CNC) Machine, Automated Processing system, Robots etc programs are developed using languages mentioned above or using a dedicated programming language. The commands in CNC program are give as codes like G01, G02, M03, etc. each code will represent an action like move in a straight line, start spindle rotation, etc. A sample CNC program for machining is also shown below.
3. Robot Programming
The following figure shows the robot in action for pick and place which are controlled by the programs written using a dedicated robot programming language which is similar to C language. The commands in robot program will represent an action or task to perform. A sample Robot program is also shown below.
Even though there are many programming platforms are available for specific applications in various branches of engineering, the technique of programming remains the same.