§ Mr. David Priceasked the Minister of Technology what support his Department is giving to the development of pneumatics in the general field of automation, and, in particular, in the more specific field of automatic control systems for machine tools.
§ Dr. BrayWork on the application of pneumatics is going on at the National Engineering Laboratory, the Royal Aircraft Establishment and the National Gas Turbine Establishment, and at least three Research Associations.
In the "Approaching Automation Campaign" which is financed by my Department and which has the aim of persuading industry, particularly the smaller and medium sized firm, to consider the use of low-cost aids to automation in order to increase productivity or improve quality, the application of pneumatics has been featured prominently. Nearly one-fifth of the exhibits deal with pneumatics and at least one-third of the films produced for this Campaign have contained references to the use of pneumatics.
Work at the National Engineering Laboratory in control systems for machine tools includes the conversion and demonstration of a simple copying lathe using commercially available components; the development of a fluidic automatic positioning system and experiments on means of providing in-process control for lathes based on pneumatic gauging.