Modular and systematic design of supervisory control system integrating PLC, SCADA and task routing for a modular production system

Abstract

This paper presents a methodology to synthesize and implement the supervisory control of manufacturing systems integrating programmable logic controller (PLC), Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) and task routing by means of the Supervisory Control Theory (SCT). A local modular approach of SCT is used to model, synthesize and emulate the minimally restrictive and nonblocking control logic, represented as a set of automata with a small number of states. Their corresponding data structures are used to automatically generate the PLC code and also to integrate SCADA functionalities. PLC and SCADA implementation is organized in a hierarchical architecture, where a task routing system heuristically decides the next PLC command to be executed, according to the safe events enabled by supervisory control and to the production plan. The application of this methodology to a didactic modular production system shows that the proposed approach benefits the systematization, modularity and structure of the supervisory control system design, as well as it reinforces the safety, flexibility and efficiency of the manufacturing system.