Automatic (mechanism)

An automaton is a machine , an independently operating device (or a set of devices) that performs according to a strictly defined program, without direct human participation, the processes of obtaining, converting, transmitting and using energy , material and information . Machines are used to provide comfortable living conditions for a person, increase productivity, facilitate and ensure his safety.

Machines are known from antiquity, the first machines were moving figures of people and animals .

Automatic devices of the XVIII — XIX centuries were based on the principles and methods of classical mechanics . The development of electrical engineering , the practical use of electricity in military affairs, communications and transport led to a number of discoveries and inventions that served as the scientific and technical base for new types of automata operating with the help of electricity . The works of Russian scientists were of great importance: the invention of P. L. Schilling of a magnetoelectric relay (1830) - one of the basic elements of electroautomatic, developed by F. M. Balyukevich, V. M. Tagaychikov and others. signaling on railway transport, the creation of S. M. Apostolov-Berdichevsky together with M. F. Freudenberg of the first automatic telephone exchange in the world (1893–1895), and many others.

The beginning of the industrial use of automatic machines refers to the period of the industrial revolution of the XVIII century . The automatic devices of this time, which were mainly experimental in nature, include: in Russia, Andrei Nartov’s automatic support for turning and copying machines (1820s), the float regulator of water level in the boiler I. I. Polzunova (1765), in England - centrifugal regulator J. Watt (1784), in France - a program-controlled loom from punched cards for the production of large-patterned fabrics J. Jacquard (1808) and others.

The emergence of electronics has led to the emergence of fundamentally new electronic automatic devices and entire complexes - from electronic relays to control computers .

With the development of automata, their capabilities and applications expanded, they became complex automatic devices that successfully perform the functions of control, regulation and control. Instead of individual machines, automatic complexes using computers were used.