Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Instrumentation is defined as the art and science of measurement and control of process variables within a production or manufacturing area. The process variables used in industries are Level, Pressure, Temperature, Humidity, Flow, pH, Force, Speed etc. Control engineering or control systems engineering is the engineering discipline that applies control theory to design systems with desired behaviors. Control engineers are responsible for the research, design, development and control devices/systems, typically in manufacturing facilities and plants. The practice uses sensors to measure the output performance of the device being controlled and those measurements can be used to give feedback to the input actuators that can make corrections toward desired performance. When a device is designed to perform without the need of human inputs for correction it is called automatic control (such as cruise control for regulating a car's speed). Multi-disciplinary in nature, control systems engineering activities focus on implementation of control systems mainly derived by mathematical modeling of systems of a diverse range.

This term refers to the graduate discipline which many universities provide at graduate and postgraduate level.Instrumentation and Control plays a significant role in both gathering information from the field and changing the field parameters, and as such are a key part of control loops.The Instrumentation Technology, being an inter-disciplinary branch of engineering, is heading towards development of new & intelligent sensors, smart transducers, MEMS Technology, Blue tooth Technology. This discipline finds its origin in both electrical and electronics engineering, and it covers subjects related to electronics and electrical streams. In short, it deals with measurement, automation and control processes.In today's scenario, there are many people who are willing to make a career in this stream. Almost all process and manufacturing industry such as steel, oil, petrochemical, power and defense production will have a separate instrumentation and control department, which is manned and managed by instrumentation and control engineers. “Automation is the buzz word in process industry, and automation is the core job of instrumentation and control engineers. Hence, the demand for instrumentation will always be there."

An instrumentation and control engineer is required to

Instrumentation and control engineers have a role to play in all the fields where there is automation.The instruments created by control engineers to automate the processes,thus reducing the involvement of manpower.
An instrumentation and control engineer is expected to learn subjects like

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