Industry 4.0 and Beyond—Present Trends, Emerging Solutions and Future Technologies in the Area of the Industrial Automation

The constant development of new technologies and production methods and their integration in the various fabrication and manufacturing processes has fuelled several waves of novelties and innovations in the industrial domain, which are also known as the industrial revolutions. These transformative processes have changed humanity forever and have shifted the economic models and the manufacturing methods of our societies - from the hand-based farming and manual production of goods to the total utilization of information systems, machines and robots for the large-scale fabrication of high-quality products and the delivery of modern services. The industrial revolutions have led to increased production volumes, higher manufacturing efficiency, lower prices, better working conditions, improved salaries and to significant improvements of the infrastructure, the railroad and the road networks. The recent technological advancements and the development of novel paradigms for the use of autonomous robots, cyber-physical systems, artificial intelligence algorithms, quantum computing and nanotechnologies are slowly changing the overall landscape and are pushing humanity towards the next wave of Industrial revolutions. While these innovations are offer significant benefits, they are also presenting a new set of challenges for the companies and their staff. In this paper we present and discuss the present trends, emerging solutions and future technologies in the area of the Industrial Automation. The Introduction section of the paper provides a brief overview of the past and present Industrial revolutions and highlights the advantages and the disadvantages of their underlying technologies. The next chapter of the paper presents in more details the trending technologies and the solutions of the present-day Industrial Automation domain. The paper continues with discussions about the emerging Industry 5.0 technologies and solutions. The next chapter of the manuscript is dedicated to the potential future Industrial Automation technologies, which will most likely constitute the Industry 6.0 paradigm. Last, but not least, we conclude the paper with some discussions about the automation technologies and the main challenges, opportunities and needs of the Industrial sector.