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UNIT 10. LESSON 3

Read the text without a dictionary.

10B. CYBERNETICS AND AUTOMATIC CONTROL

Man has always been striving to make physical work easier by using more efficient tools and mechanical means. The greatest technological progress has been made in the past 150-200 years. However, this progress has been accomplished by growing intellectual and nervous strain on man connected with the control of new machinery.

To see for yourself how true this is, just look into the driver's cab of a modern locomotive, into the wheel-house of an ocean-going ship or into the cockpit of a modern airliner, with their multitudinous controls and indicator dials.

This has presented today's world with new problems. At present, there is only one way of solving these problems, namely through extensive use of highly efficient means and methods of cybernetics.

The immense possibilities of cybernetics as a science dealing with the most general laws of control have opened up boundless prospects for the automation of complex and labour-saving process in all spheres of human activities.

Cybernetics is gaining a growing importance. Nowadays, many processes of man's activities can be mathematically described and, therefore technical facilities may be provided to simulate these processes automatically. Automation makes it possible not only to free man from doing various operations but also to perform the operations with a greater speed and accuracy. The progress of computing engineering and the theory of programming process are vital to successful employment of cybernetic techniques.

History provides very early examples of automatic control, but they were little used in industry. Progress was slow until the 20th century, but it received an important stimulus from the military needs of the last war and the pace has accelerated. Automatic control is most advanced in industries like chemical, oil-refining and food-processing, where materials are easy to handle. Because of it these industries have become highly automatic without any of the well-known inventions, such as transfer-machines and electronic computers. Control is also largely automatic in the manufacture of goods so different as iron and steel, cement and paper.

A system of control usually consists of three basic units - one that measures, one that controls, and one that corrects. If, for example, the condition to be controlled is the temperature of a boiler, the measuring unit records what is happening to the temperature and tells the controlling unit, which compares the actual temperature with what it should be, and then tells the correcting unit to adjust a steam valve and so correct the temperature.

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Controlling instruments are pneumatic, mechanical or hydraulic, and electric. Electric or electronic units are fast and able to send signals over long distances so giving remote control.

Automatic control is perhaps best known in plants where production is continuous, such as oil-refineries, but it is also found in factories that produce in batches. There are instances when the search for definite material requires a great deal of effort and time. A machine does the job in minutes.

Automatic information return systems operate in a number of institutions, in particular, in electrical engineering, instrument making and light industry.

COMPREHENSION TEST

I.Say whether these sentences are true or false.

1.People tried to lighten physical work using animals.

2.The greatest technological progress was made in the beginning of 17th century.

3.The cockpit of an airliner, the driver's cab of a locomotive, the wheel-house of a ship are the examples of new machinery.

4.The today's problem is the control technology.

5.Cybernetics deals with computers.

6.Automation cannot free man from doing various operations.

7.Technical progress was slow up to the end of the 19th century.

8.We cannot properly automate oil-refining and food-processing industries.

9.Controlling instruments are pneumatic and mechanical.

10.Electronic units are rather slow and able to send signals over long distances.

11.A machine does the job in a minute.

12.Electrical engineering, instrument making and light industires demand automatic systems.

II.Find the answers to the following questions.

1.What period of time has been taken by the technological progress?

2.What did this progress cause?

3.What is cybernetics?

4.Is cybernetics important nowadays?

5.Can automation perform operations instead of men?

6.What is vital to successful use of cybernetics techniques?

7.What accelerated the technical progress in the 20th century?

8.In what industries is automatic control most advanced?

9.What are the basic units of a control system?

10.What kind can controlling instruments be of?

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Translate the text into English. Entitle the text.

TEXT 10C

В наши дни нельзя представить технический прогресс без автоматизации. Автоматизация - это самая высокая степень механизации.

Существуют полностью автоматизированные предприятия. Это электростанции с дистанционным управлением, химические заводы. Оператор должен только лишь следить за работой автоматических приборов. На некоторых предприятиях даже не требуется постоянного присутствия человека. Приборы автоматически начинают и заканчивают операции.

Работа автоматического оборудования более точна и надежна, чем работа человека. Но работа такого оборудования требует высоко-квалифицированных образованных специалистов.

10D. AUTOMATION IN USE

A variety of modern tools, including copying machines, microphotography and mechanical office equipment, helps in the handling of the growing volume of information. Electronic computers are being more and more widely used to process this information.

Nowadays almost every sphere of human life is automated to some degree. Automation is being developed in business, in science, in engineering, and in manufacturing. Powerful, special-purpose electronic machines make people more efficient in their everyday jobs.

In the past 200 years people have improved their ability to manufacture goods by a factor of 100 but in the last 20 years there has been an increase of 10,000,000 in the rate at which we process and retrieve information.

Early electronic processing machines were best at arithmetics. But now they do things that aren't mathematical. They handle all kinds of information, and they are especially good in searching out and sorting out data.

Transport is only a service of industry, and must be coordinated with development in communications and with planning. Automation, telemechanics and computing techniques are being widely introduced in traffic control.

The examples of such are the use of buses in a demand-activated mode, made possible by better communication computers and organization; the use of electronics for presentation of information to car drivers and the automatic control of cars on motorways; and the design of improved vehicles, such as monorail or automatically

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controlled trams.

Any automatic vehicle that operates at much above walking speed needs a reserved track, and to avoid creating a barrier to the movements of pedestrians and vehicles this must be above or below ground. Automobile computers are now used in some cars to locate engine problems. This device substantially reduces time for servicing. Another electronically controlled system is fuel injection. Automatic control of automobiles and trucks on highways is already a possibility. Computers are widely used for automatic control of traffic on highways.

I. Translate the text using the dictionary.

II. Give the main idea in 2-3 sentences.

III. Make up a short plan of the text.

LISTENING COMPREHENSION. TEXT 10E

Listen to the text and decide which word appears in the text.

1.Cybernetics is the science dealing with the problems of control and управления of processes.

2.The main aim of this science is увеличить efficiency of human labour by controlling and governing processes in nature.

3.The American mathematician Norbert Wiener was the основатель of cybernetics.

4.Cybernetics arose as a result of the junction of different sciences связанных with control processes.

I.Give the main idea of the text.

II. Render the text into Russian.

III. Retell the text.