Programmable Automation Controllers Research Articles

Development of motion control function library based on PLCopen specification

The motion control library is a standard set of functional blocks integrated in a programmable integration environment, which is of great significance for the rapid development of reconfigurable Programmable Automation Controllers (PAC). However, due to the encapsulation and concealment of function blocks and the incompatibility between software and hardware, the development efficiency of function blocks is low, which is not conducive to the development of autonomous, controllable PAC. Aiming at the above problems, the methods of function block opening and key technology are studied, and a kind of motion control function library architecture and rapid development method based on the PLCopen specification are proposed. A series of motion control function libraries are developed on domestic PLC software. An experimental platform based on domestic hardware and software was designed to verify the typical motion control function library. Experimental results show that this method can effectively shorten the development cycle and that the developed motion control module can meet the actual control needs.

IEC61131-3 Instruction List Language Processor for FPGAs

This paper presents the architecture and field-programmable gate array (FPGA) implementation of a 32-bit central processing unit (CPU) dedicated to programmable logic controllers (PLCs). The CPU instruction set directly matches the instructions of the IEC 61131-3 standard Instruction List (IL) language. The designed IL processor is capable of handling 1-bit, 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit data types. Apart from integer arithmetic operations, the IL processor also performs single precision floating-point operations included in the IEC 61131-3 IL language specification. It also directly performs instructions with a parenthesis modifier for all supported data types and facilitates the fast execution of a code containing Boolean expressions. This paper also presents the performance evaluation results of the developed IL processor. Although the IL processor executed the test algorithms substantially faster than industrial PLCs (e.g., Siemens S7-1200 and Fanux VersaMax), it turned out to be significantly slower than high-performance programmable automation controllers (PACs).

A workbench for motion control experiments using programmable automation controllers in industrial automation laboratory at Kongu Engineering College

AbstractMechatronics Engineering has become an internationally recognized discipline with degree programmes offered in majority of the universities all around the world. Integrating mechanical, instrumentation, and programmable automation controller (PAC) for developing technical skills and expertise in system level integration to attain manufacturing and controller programming superiority has become the basic requirement for Mechatronics Laboratory. Divulging the graduates to servo control concept down the line to the programmable automation controller helps to gain the practical knowledge in the field of I/O interfacing, closed loop control, remote monitoring, and PLC motion control programming. Hence in this paper, a 3‐axis servo control system with HMI work bench case study has been presented to enable the graduates to learn multi‐disciplinary concepts in the field of material handling and precise position synchronous control of multi‐axis rotating system. With this work bench, applications of servo control such as electronic gearing (positioning), pick and place (material handling), and profiling (welding, machining) can be exposed to mechatronics graduates. Graduates with fundamental programming skills and apparently no‐practical experience with mechatronics systems can quickly learn how to incorporate control architectures with this work bench and prepare them to compete in Industry 4.0 environment.

Manufacturing System Upgrade with Wireless and Distributed Automation

This paper presents a case study of developing a distributed factory automation system model upgrade with decentralized control deployed on a network of six programmable automation controllers communicating wirelessly. The goal is to develop a distributed system which is flexible enough, and easier to reconfigure with on-the-fly online software updates in a smart factory automation environment. Our approach benefits mainly production industries which require a robust and modular software design requiring less effort for their production line. The developed solution aims at flexibility, re-configurability, ease of maintenance and reduced downtime costs.

Time Synchronization of Automation Controllers for Power Applications

This paper investigates various forms of industrial time synchronization and applies these methods to programmable automation controllers (PACs) for power system applications. PACs have been used in the industry for many control applications, and advancements in synchronization technology have allowed PACs to be used in high-speed control and data acquisition systems. This paper looks at using the PAC as a time-synchronized sequence-of-events recorder for substation automation. It is shown that a PAC can be time synchronized to multiple time references and provide accuracies accepted by the power industry.

A Multi-core Heterogeneous Programmable Automation Controller System of Construction Machine

There are two main issues, high cost and interrupt response delay for current PACs (programmable automation controllers) which are using high frequency single-chip microprocessors and commercial RTOS (real-time operating system) working by switching the tasks and interrupts. To solve these problems, a new low-cost multi-core heterogeneous PAC structure was proposed. Based on the traditional front-end of interrupt service without interrupt switching delay and the division & deployment of multi real-time tasks. We implemented a new programming language Engineer C including its syntax, compiler and an integrated development environment, which can dynamically divide the multi tasks and deploy the division to single low-cost microcontroller, then built the hardware prototype, which consists of a digital signal board, an analog signal board and a motion control board, every board has its microcontroller and communicates each other by an enhanced SPI bus. Testing results show the hardware prototype and IDE can be provided as a low-cost PAC solution for construction machine. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/telkomnika.v11i12.3802

Application of H-infinity Robust Controller on PAC

The paper deals with the design and implementation of chosen algorithm based on modern control theory into programmable automation controllers (PAC) used for tutorial purposes. Physical model of Ball&Beam was chosen as an example of a real system to be controlled by H-inf robust controller, using a mixed sensitivity configuration scheme. It covers all the phases of design and implementation of robust controller in Matlab&Simulink, while the implementation was carried out in REX Control system with WinPAC controllers as special embedded systems, mainly WinPAC WP-8841.

Where others fear to tread [programmable automation controllers (PACs) and programmable logic controllers (PLCs)

Until relatively recently, PLCs dominated the automation space, but, as plants cut costs and reduce system upgrade funding, engineers must continue to improve the plant while keeping overall costs low. Many plants are successfully implementing a strategy to locally optimise their processes by intelligently applying new technology to increase efficiency at bottlenecks. Local optimisation of processes requires higher speed signal acquisition and more sophisticated analysis operations, such as machine vision, Fourier transforms, order analysis and model-free adaptive control. The traditional PLC architecture, with I/O scanning and ladder logic, works well for sequential, discrete logic control, but extending this architecture to build in the more advanced functions required for local optimisation is often not practical. PACs combine the floating point processors, wide range of networking options and sophisticated programming tools more usually found on the PC with the industrial I/O and ruggedness usually associated with PLCs. The use of programmable automation controllers (PACs) in process control and automation is growing rapidly. In many applications, however PACs are not replacing PLCs; rather engineers use them to expand process monitoring and control into areas where PLCs fear to thread.

The future of control [programmable automation controllers

Programmable automation controllers (PAC) have been dubbed as the future of control. In order to verify this claim, this paper examines what a programmable automation controller (PAC) is, how it compares to the PLC (programmable logic controllers) and what benefits the PAC has for control and automation engineers.