Control Intelligence

In this episode of Control Intelligence, editor in chief Mike Bacidore is joined by an important figure in the controls and automation world, Dr. Brian Romano, director of technology development at Arthur G. Russell Company. With more than four decades of experience in industrial automation and control systems engineering, Romano’s career has centered around innovation, leadership and a forward-looking commitment to advanced technology in manufacturing. He’s played a central role in aligning machine-building with data-enabled systems before Industry 4.0 was a thing. His work includes control systems architecture, enterprise connectivity, digital transformation and predictive analytics, even combining them to offer production-as-a-service capabilities by leveraging remote monitoring capabilities. Beyond his industry leadership, Romano brings a passion for developing the next generation of engineers, serving as adjunct faculty at both Central Connecticut State University and the University of Hartford. His academic achievements, including a Ph.D. in Technology and Innovation, an MBA in Business and Data Analytics, and multiple national honor societies, complement his work as an entrepreneur, a published researcher and the 2022 Division Leader of Year with the International Society of Automation. He is also an ISA fellow.

Control Design editor in chief Mike Bacidore spoke Mark Arisman, manager of business development for control products at Nord Drivesystems, about Nord's advancements in drive technology and the digital twin.

The space shuttle had three computers and needed a two-of-three voting system to determine if a sensed variable was real or phantom. This would be a good thing regarding a leaking door seal on the capsule. Safety sensing isn’t a new technology, but it seems that understanding what a safety system function is might be lacking a bit. In this episode of Control Intelligence, written by contributing editor Jeremy Pollard, editor in chief Mike Bacidore talks about safety systems.

Controls engineers are surrounded by protocols. Proprietary protocols are less common today than before, but they are still around. In this episode, written by contributing editor Tobey Strauch, Editor-in-Chief Mike Bacidore discusses how to choose between Ethernet IP and SSI.

In most factory lines, the soft PLC and PAC are commonly based on Industrial PC hardware. It is this hardware platform that has quietly become one of the most important components of a factory line’s control hardware. In this episode of Control Intelligence, written by contributing editor Joey Stubbs, editor in chief Mike Bacidore discusses fanless controller housings.

In this episode of Control Intelligence, written by contributing editor Tobey Strauch and originally aired in March 2025, editor in chief Mike Bacidore discusses the similarities and differences between PLCs and PACs.

It’s the beginning of the new year, and everyone’s capital budget is going to be reset and revised. People will come out with their five-year and 10-year and 20-year plans, and once again plant management will ask the question: “Can we upgrade the control systems?” In this episode of Control Intelligence, written by contributing editor Tobey Strauch, editor in chief Mike Bacidore discusses when to upgrade control systems.

In this episode of Control Intelligence, written by contributing editor Tobey Strauch, editor in chief Mike Bacidore discusses on-machine sensing and IIoT implementation. Once you’ve finished listening to the podcast, take Control Design's quiz about on-machine sensing and IIoT implementation.

Many electrical engineers will ignore mechanical properties of a machine because it’s not their specialty. Control systems engineers cannot do that. Controls require an understanding of the electrical and mechanical interface. In this episode of Control Intelligence, written by contributing editor Tobey Strauch, editor in chief Mike Bacidore discusses how to monitor and manage the health of hydraulic systems.

During commissioning and after, if you hear three definitions of I/O checkout and then get residual failures after a down and an install because no one is going off a commissioning plan, writing up a test plan or adhering to a commissioning plan, then there is a problem. In this episode of Control Intelligence, written by contributing editor Tobey Strauch, editor in chief Mike Bacidore discusses machine commissioning and I/O checkout.

With the advent of common communication platforms, new layers of automation devices became available to control systems on the plant floor. In this episode of Control Intelligence, written by contributing editor Jeremy Pollard, editor in chief Mike Bacidore discusses the impact of I/O on the interoperability trend.

In factory automation, safety systems are no longer the peripheral add-ons of the past. They are integral to the design, operation and long-term viability of production lines. As automation increases and machinery becomes more interconnected, engineers are routinely tasked with specifying safety controllers, networks, sensors and safety I/O devices that carry a defined safety integrity level (SIL). In this episode of Control Intelligence, written by contributing editor Joey Stubbs, editor in chief Mike Bacidore shares why SIL matters.

In this episode of Control Intelligence, which was written by contributing editor Shawn Cox in June of 2023, more than two and a half years ago, editor in chief Mike Bacidore discusses the predictions for control systems. Cox’s article was revisited by many as we closed out 2025, and it became one of Control Design's most popular reads in December. Let’s revisit his thoughts from the summer of 2023.

Control systems engineering requires a broad knowledge base of many components. Why? Applications of all shapes, sizes, functionality and needs are brought to machine-builder tables, and automation is requested to provide solutions to manufacturing problems. In this episode of Control Intelligence, written by contributing editor Tobey Strauch, editor in chief Mike Bacidore discusses motor starters and variable-frequency drives.

Did Industry 4.0 go away? No. It seems that, behind the scenes, the open-source platform community is just working along, developing the next go-around of competitive devices for the traditional automaton folks to keep up with. In this episode of Control Intelligence, written by contributing editor Tobey Strauch, editor in chief Mike Bacidore discusses Ethernet-APL.

Integration of PLCs and robots has become standardized. Standard robot command interface is a means for robots to increase its interface capacity with programmable logic controllers, but SRCI has been around for a while. In this episode of Control Intelligence, written by contributing editor Tobey Strauch, editor in chief Mike Bacidore discusses the standard robot command interface.

Field-mounted devices change the way controls engineers approach industrial networking. The shift toward on-machine connectivity can simplify design, streamline wiring and enable strategies like conveyor zone management. In this episode of Control Intelligence, written by contributing editor Rick Rice, editor in chief Mike Bacidore talks about how field networking unlocks automated setup and diagnostics.

While China's technical design report for its proposed circular electron-positron collider (CEPC) is still awaiting government approval for inclusion in the next five-year plan, hope is still strong that construction of the $5.2 billion supercollider could begin as soon as 2027 and be completed in a decade, surpassing CERN's large hadron collider (LHC) as the world's largest machine. In this episode of Control Intelligence, editor in chief Mike Bacidore talks about the race to surpass the world’s biggest machine.

The guest on this episode of Control Intelligence is Jeremy Pollard, who was a 10-year veteran of Allen-Bradley as a technical specialist. Pollard established Allen-Bradley's Toronto District Training Office where PLC-2, PLC-3 and PLC-5 courses were implemented, and more than 1,000 students were personally trained by him. Pollard has consulted for SoftPLC, Flexis Control, Wonderware and IndX Software and was responsible for product development and direction for PLC support software packages under DOS, OS/2 and six different Windows iterations. He is the former North American Managing Director of PLCopen, the international association for standardized control system solutions. Pollard has written countless articles for various automation trade publications, and he is our longest-standing monthly columnist on Control Design, where he writes the Embedded Intelligence column. Pollard holds a diploma in electrical engineering technology from Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto. He's worked on projects for companies ranging from Baxter Pharmaceuticals and General Motors to Chevron and Labatt Breweries.

For many years, real-time control software, whether running on a dedicated controller or an industrial PC, operated on a single CPU core. The runtime scheduler could precisely calculate scan times, and the engineer’s mental model of “one processor, one control loop” held true. In this episode of Control Intelligence, written by contributing editor Joey Stubbs, editor in chief Mike Bacidore shares how to handle determinism, jitter and load balancing in multicore control architectures.