PLC and SCADA Applications Pawan D Baronde VIII th Sem Electrical Engg, GH Raisoni College of Engineering Nagpur, 440016, INDIA pawan_12584@ hotmail.com Absiract — Industrial automation, with its ‘machine & process control, had its origin in the 1920°s the advent of pneumatic controllers. This device using compressed air was the flexible, economical & safe ‘They created no spark hazards in an explosive almosphere and could be used under wet condition ‘without electrical shock hazard Even though pneumatic hhad, and still has, its advantages especially with the advent of digital-logic pneumatic-control components as ‘an actual controlling device it began to be replace by discrete solid state contrllers in 1960's, ‘The big leap into true automation and industrial control, however toke place with the arrival of the rmicroprocessor in the early 1970's Now it was the program, or software, that modeled and emulated the control that had been previously achieved by discrete gate, encoders/decoders, counters, timers, flip-flops and smaller digital try. Furthermore, with the tiny microprocessor controllers istributive intelligence” become reality. The controller ‘was brought closer to the part of the process to be controlled.Although the microprocessor controller has found its in machines and process control, embedded as it in the control device, it isthe ple that has come to dominated industrial automation, With its dedicated inpuvoutput —(analog/digital), hardened hardware, scanning processing and ladder logic programming. The ple today represents the optimum way to achieve the industrial control. 1. WHATISPLC ? A. PLC (ie. Programmable Logic Controller) is a device that was invented to replace the necessary sequential relay circuits for machine control. The PLC works by looking at its inputs and depending upon their State, turning on/off its outputs. The user enters a program, usually via software, that gives the desired results, Anil Kumar Sinha VIII th Sem Electrical Engg G.H Raisoni College of Engineering Nagpur, 440016, INDIA sahil_2882_sinha@ homail.com PLCs are used in many “real world” applications. If there is industry present, chances are good that there is, a ple present. If you are involved in machining, packaging, material handling, automated assembly or countless other industries you are probably already using them. If you are not, you are wasting money and time. Almost any application that needs some type of electrical control has a need for a ple. For example, let's assume that when a switch turns ‘on we want fo turn a solenoid on for 5 seconds and then turn it off regardless of how long the switch is on for: We can do this with a simple external timer. But what if the process included 10 switches and solenoids? We ‘would need 10 external timers. What if the process also needed to count how many times the switches individually turned on? We need a lot of external counters, IL INTERNAL OPERATION OF PLC The PLC mainly consists of a CPU, memory areas, and appropriate circuits to receive input/output data. We can actually consider Fig. 1, the PLC to be a box full of hundreds or thousands of separate relays, counters, timers and data storage locations. Do these counters, timers, etc. really exist? No, they don't ‘physically" exist but rather they are simulated and can be considered software counters, timers, etc. These internal relays are simulated through bit locations in registers,Input ‘Output Relays Counters Releys Intemal Utlty | Timers | Dal Relays Storage Internal architecture of PLC Figure 1 What does each part do? INPUT — RELAYS-(contacts)These are connected to the outside world. They physically exist and receive signals from switches, sensors, etc. Typically they are not relays but rather they are transistors. INTERNAL UTILITY RELAYS-(contacts) ‘These do not receive signals from the outside world nor do they physically exist. They are simulated relays and are what enables a PLC to eliminate external relays. There are also some special relays that are dedicated to performing only one task. Some are always on While some are always off. Some are on only ‘once during power-on and are typically used for initializing data that was stored COUNTERS-These again do not physically exist. They ate simulated counters and they ccan be programmed to count pulses. Typically these counters can count up, down or both up ‘and down. Since they are simulated they are limited in their counting speed. Some manufacturers also include high-speed counters that are hardware based. We can think of these as physically existing. Most times these counters can count up, down of up and down, TIMERS-These also do not physically exist ‘They come in many varieties and inerements ‘The most common type is an on-delay type. Others include off-delay and both retentive ‘and non-tetentive types. Increments vary from lms through Is. OUTPUT —RELAYS.(coils)These are connected to the outside world. They physically exist and send on/off signals. to solenoids, lights, ete. They ean be transistors, relays, or triacs depending upon the model chosen, © DATA STORAGE-Typically there are registers assigned to simply store data. They are usually used as temporary storage for math ‘of data manipulation, They can also typically be used to store data when power is removed from the PLC. Upon power-up they wil still hhave the same contents as before power was removed. Very convenient and necessary! ‘A. PLCS OPERATION: A PLC works by continually seanning a program. We can think of this scan cycle as consisting of 3 important steps. There ate typically more than 3 but we can focus on the important parts and not worry about the others. Typically the others are checking the system and updating the current internal counter and timer values. Consider the Fig. 2. Step 1--Fitst the PLC takes a look at each input to determine if itis on or off. In other words, is the sensor connected to the fitst input on? How about the second input? How about the third... Ir records this data into its, ‘memory to be used during the next step. (CHECK INPUT STATUS ——_f EXEQUTE PROGRAM I (UPDATE OUTPUT STATUS| Figure 2. Operation of PLC Step 1--First the PLC takes a look at each input to determine if itis on or off. In other words, is the sensor connected to the fitst input on? How about the second input? How about the third... It records this data into its, ‘memory to be used during the next step. Step 2-Next the PLC executes your program one instruction at a time, Maybe your program said that if the first input was on then it should turn on the first,‘output. Since it already knows which inputs are on/off fiom the previous step it will be able to decide whether the first output should be turned on based on the state of the first input. I will store the execution results for use later during the next step. ‘Step 3-Finally the PLC updates the status of the ‘outputs. It updates the outputs based on which inputs were on dusing the first step and the results of executing your program during the second step. Based ‘on the example in step 2 it would now turn on the first, ‘output because the first input was on and your program said to turn on the first output when this condition is ve. ‘Afier the third step the PLC goes back to step one and tepeats the steps continuously. One sean time is defined as the time it takes to execute the 3 steps listed above. VI. CoMMUNICATIONS HISTORY By far, the most popular method of communicating with external devices is by using the "RS-232" communications method. Communication with external devices is viewed by many ple programmers to be difficult if not “all but impossible” to understand, ‘The biggest problems with these devices was the fact that they were parallel (required multiple wires) Cooke and Wheatstone eventually made a two wire device but the first practical fully serial binary system generally gets credited to S.F-B. Morse. In Morse code, characters are symbolized by dots and dashes(binary Vs and 015). A. RS-232 COMMUNICATIONS (HARDWARE) RS.232 communications is the most popular method of ple to external device communications. Let's tackle it piece by piece to see how simple it can be when we understand it RS.232 is an asynchronous (a marching band must be "in sync” with each other so that when one steps they all step. They are asynchronous in that they follow the band leader to keep theit timing) communications method. We use a binary system (I's and 0s) t0 twansmit our data in the ASCH format. (American Standard Code for Information Interchange pronounced ASS-KEY) This code translates human readable code (lettersinumbers) into “computer readable” code (1's and 0's). Our ples serial port is used for wansmission/reception of the data. It works by sending/receiving a voltage. A positive voltage is called a MARK and a negative voltage is called a SPACE. Typically, the ple works with #/- 15volts. The voltage beiween +/- 3 volts is generally not used and is considered noise. ‘There are 2 types of RS-232 devices. The first is called a DTE device. This means Data Terminal Equipment and a common example is a computer. The ‘other type is called a DCE device. DCE means Data ‘Communications Equipment and a common example is a modem, Your ple may be either a DTE or DCE. device. Check your documentation. RS-232 COMMUNICATIONS (SOFTWARE) ASCII is a human-readable to computer-readable translation code. (i.e. each leter/aumber is translated to T's and O's) It’s a 7-bit (a bit is a 1 or a 0) code, so we can translate 128 characters. (2°7 is 128) Character sets that use the Sth bit do exist but they are not tue ASCIL Below is an ASCH chart showing its "human- readable" representation. We typically refer to the characters by using hexadecimal terminology. "0" is 30h, "5" is 35h, "E" is 45h, etc (the "h simple means hexadecimal) ‘© start bit- In RS-232 the first thing we send is called a start bit. This start bit ("invented during WWI by Kleinschmidt) isa synchronizing bit added just before each character we are sending. This is considered a SPACE or negative voltage or a0. © sop bit- The last thing we send is called a Stop bit. This stop bit tells us that the last character was just sent. Think of it as an end- of -character bit. This is considered a MARK fF positive voltage or a 1. The start and stop bits are commonly called framing bits because they surround the character we are sending. ‘© parity bit- Since most ples/external equipment are byte-oriented (8 bits=Ibyte) it seems natural to handle data as a byte. Although ASCILis a 7-bit code itis n even number of Vs, Common forms of parity are None, Even, and Oud. © Baud rate Ill perpetuate the incorrect meaning since i's most commonly used incorrectly. Think of baud rate as referring tothe number of bits per second that are being ‘wansmitted. So 1200 means 1200 bits per second ate being sent and 9600 means 9600 bits are being transmitted every second. Common values (speeds) are 1200, 2400, 4800, 9600, 19200, and 38400, © RS232 data format- (baud rate-databits- parity-stop bits) This is the way the data format is typically specified. For example, .9600-8-N-1 means a baud rate of 9600, 8 data bits, parity of None, and I stop bit. ‘Another important thing that is sometimes used is called software handshaking (flow control) Like the hardware handshaking, software handshaking is used to make sure both devices are ready 10 sendireceive data. The most popular “character flow control” is called XON/XOFF. It’s very simple to understand. Simply put, the receiver sends the XOFF character when it wants the transmitter to pause sending data, When it's ready to receive data again, it sends the transmitter the XON character. XOFF is sometimes referred to as the hold off character and XON as the release character IX. ADVANTAGES OF PLC Reduced space: Ple’s are fully solid state and hence extremely compact as compared to hard - wired controller wherein electromechanical devices are used, Energy saving: Average power consumption is just 1/10" of power consumed by an equivalent relay logic control Ease of maintenance: Modular replacement, Easy ‘touble shooting, Error diagnosties with program. Economical: Consider one time investment ple is most, ‘economical system, The cost of ple can be recovered ‘within the short period of time. Greater life and reliability: The static device has a lesser number of moving parts reduces wear and tear. In case of hard-wired logic control hardware is either electromagnetic or pneumatic and therefore itis more prone to fault ‘Tremendous flexibility: To implement change in ‘control logic no wiring is required so considerable time saved, ‘Advance computation supported : Ple can carry out complex function such as generation of time delay, counting, comparing, arithmetic operation etc. ‘Speed and flexibility: It gives high processing speed and great flexibility in the processing of both analog and digital signal Easier storage Archiving and Documentation: ‘This is due to the capability with PC/AT, printer and floppy disks. 1X. APPLICATIONS OF PLC In industries, there are many production task, which are of highly repetitive nature, although repetitive and ‘monotonous, each stage needs careful attention of ‘operator to assure good quality of fine products. Few examples of industries where the ple used for the control and automation purpose are listed below Tyre industries, Blender reclaimer, Bulk material handling system at ports, Ship unloader, Wagon loader, steel plants, Blast furnace charging, Brick molding press in refractory, Galvanizing plant, Diary Automation, Printing industries etc. SCADA L INTRODUCTION Widely used in industry for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition of industrial processes, SCADA systems are now also. penetrating the experimental physics laboratories for the controls of ancillary systems such as cooling, ventilation, power distribution, ete. More recently they were also applied for the controls of smaller size particle detectors. SCADA systems have made substantial progress over the recent years in terms of functionality, scalability, performance and openness such that they are an alternative to in house development even for very demanding and complex control systems as those ‘of physics experiments, Il. War ors SCADA MEAN? SCADA stands for Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition, As the name indicates, it is not a full control system, but rather focuses on the supervisorylevel. As such, it is a purely software package that is positioned on top of hardware to which itis interfaced, in general via Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCS), ‘or other commercial hardware modules. SCADA. systems are used not only in industrial processes: e.g. steelmaking, power ‘generation (conventional and nuclear) and distribution, chemistry, but also in some experimental facilities such ‘as nuclear fusion. The size of such plants range trom a few 1000 to several 10 thousands inpuvoutput (VO) channels. However, SCADA systems evolve rapidly ‘and are now penetrating the market of plants with a number of HO channels of several 100 K: we know of two cases of near to 1 M VO channels currently under development. SCADA systems used to run on DOS, VMS and UNIX; in recent years all SCADA vendors have moved to NT and some also to Linus. IIL, INTERFACING Application Interfaces / Openness ‘The provision of OPC client functionality for SCADA to access devices in an open and standard manner is developing. There still seems to be a lack of devices/contollers, which provide OPC server software, but this improves rapidly as most of the producers of conteollers are actively involved in the development of this standard. OPC has been evaluated by the CERN-IT-CO group [4] “The products also provide © an Open Data Base Connectivity (ODBC) interface to the data in the archive/logs, but not to the configuration database, © an ASCII importlexport configuration data, facility for © a library of APIs supporting C, C++, and Visual Basie (VB) t access data in the RTDB, logs and archive. The API often does not provide access to the product's internal features such as alarm handling, reporting, ‘tending, et. ‘The PC products provide support for the Microsoft standards. such as Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) Which allows e.g. to visualise data dynamically in an EXCEL spreadsheet, Dynamic Link Library (DLL) and Object Linking and Embedding (OLE). IV. ScALABULITY Scalability is understood as the possibility to extend the SCADA based control system by adding ‘more process variables, more specialized servers (e.g. for alarm handling) or mote clients. The products achieve scalability by having multiple data servers connected to multiple controllers. Each data server has its own configuration database and RTDB and is responsible for the handling of a sub-set of the process variables (acquisition, alarm handling, archiving) \V. REDUNDANCY ‘The products often have built in software redundancy at a server level, which is normally twansparent to the user. Many of the products also provide more complete redundancy solutions if required, VI. FUNCTIONALITY A. ACCESS CONTROL Users are allocated fo groups, which have defined read/write access privileges t the process parameters in the system and often also to specific product functionality. B. MMI ‘The produets support multiple screens, which can contain combinations of synoptic diagrams and text ‘They also support the concept of a "generic ‘graphical object with links to process variables. These objects can be “dragged and dropped” from a library and included into a synoptic diagram, C.TRENDING ‘The products all provide tending facilities and one can summaries the common capabilities. as follows: ‘© the parameters to be twended in a specific chart ccan be predefined or defined on-line © a chart may contain more than 8 wended parameters of pens and an unlimited number Of charts can be displayed (restricted only by the readability) ‘© realtime and historical wending are possible, although generally notin the same chart‘© historical tending is possible for any archived parameter ‘© zooming and scrolling functions are provided ‘© parameter values at the cursor position ean be displayed D. ALARM HANDLING ‘Alarm handling is based ow limit and status checking and performed in the data servers. More complicated expressions (using arithmetic or logical expressions) can be developed by creating derived parameters on which status or limit checking is then performed. The alarms are logically handled centrally, i.e., the information only exists in one place and all users see the same status (e.g., the acknowledgement), ‘and multiple alarm priority levels (in general many ‘more than 3 such levels) are supported. E, LogGiN@/ARCHIVING ‘The terms logging and archiving are often used to describe the same facility. However, logging can be thought of as medium-term storage of data on disk, whereas archiving is long-term storage of data either on disk or on another permanent storage medium, Logging is ypically performed on a cyclic basis, Le., once a certain file size, time period or umber of points is reached the data is overwritten, Logging of data can be performed at a set frequency, or only initiated if the value changes or when a specific predefined event occurs. Logged data canbe twansferred to an archive once the log is full. The logged data is time-stamped and can be filtered when viewed by a user, The logging of user actions is in general performed together with either a user ID oF station ID. There is often also a VCR facility to play back archived data F. Report Generation One can produce reports using SQL ype queries to the archive, RTDB or logs. Although it is sometimes possible to embed EXCEL charts in the report, a “cut and paste” capability is in general not provided. Facilities exist to be able to automatically ‘generate, print and archive reports. G. AUTOMATION, ‘The majority of the products allow actions to bbe automatically tiggered by events. A. scripting language provided by the SCADA products allows these actions to be defined. In general, one can load a particular display, send an Email, run a user defined application or seript and write to the RTDB. VIL. APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT A. CONFIGURATION ‘The development of the applications is typically done in two stages. First the process parameters and associated information (e.g. relating to alarm conditions) are defined through some sort of parameter definition template and then the graphics, including tending and alarm displays are developed, and linked where appropriate to the process parameters. The products also provide an ASCIL Exporvmport facility for the configuration data (parameter definitions), which enables large numbers of parameters to be configured in a more efficient ‘manner using an extemal editor such as Excel and then ‘importing the data into the configuration database. However, many of the PC tools now have a Windows Explorer type development studio. The developer then works with a number of folders, which each contains a different aspect of the configuration, including the graphics. ‘The facilities provided by the products for configuring very large numbers of parameters are not very strong. However, this has not really been an issue so far for most of the products to-date, as. large applications are typically about SOK VO points and database population from within an ASCI editor such as Excel is still a workable option, On-line modifications to the configuration database and the graphics is generally possible with the appropriate level of privileges. B. DEVELOPMENT Tools ‘The following development tools ate provided as standard: © a graphics editor, with standard drawing facilities including freehand, lines, squares circles, ete. Itis possible to import pictures in ‘many formats as well as using predefined symbols including e.g. tending charts, ete. A library of generic symbols is provided that can be linked dynamically to variables and‘animated as they change. It is also possible to create links between views so as to ease navigation at run-time. ‘© adata base configuration tool (usually through parameter templates). It is in general possible to export data in ASCII files so as to be edited through an ASCU editor or Excel ‘© scripting language ‘© an Application Program Interface (API) supporting C, C++, VB ‘© a Driver Development Toolkit to develop divers for hardware that is not supported by the SCADA product. (C.OWECT HANDLING ‘The products in general have the concept of graphical object classes, which support inheritance. In addition, some of the products have the concept of an object within the configuration database. In general the products do not handle objects, but rather handle individual parameters, eg. alarms are defined for parameters, logging is performed on parameters, and control actions are performed on parameters. The support of objects is therefore fairly superficial D. EvoLuTion SCADA vendors release one major version ‘and one to {wo additional minor versions once per year. ‘These products evolve thus very rapidly so as to take advantage of new market opportunities, to meet new requirements of their customers and to take advantage ‘of new technologies. ‘As was already mentioned, most of the SCADA products that were evaluated decompose the process in "atomic" parameters to which a Tag-name is associated. This is impractical in the case of very large processes when very large sets of Tags need to be configured. As the industrial applications are increasing in size, new SCADA versions are now being designed to handle devices and even entire systems as full entities (classes) that encapsulate all their specific attributes and functionality. In addition, they will also support multi-team development. AS far as new technologies are concerned, the SCADA products are now adopting: © Web technology, ActiveX, Java, etc © OPC as.a means for communicating internally between the client and server modules. It should thus be possible to connect OPC ‘compliant third party modules to that SCADA, product. E, ENGINEERING Whilst one should rightly anticipate significant development and maintenance savings by adopting a SCADA product for the implementation of a control system, it does not mean a “no effort ‘operation, The need for proper engineering can not be sufficiently emphasised to reduce development effort and to reach a system that complies with the requirements, that is economical in development and ‘maintenance and that is reliable and robust, Examples fof engineering activities specific to the use of a SCADA system are the definition of: * a library of objects (PLC, device, subsystem) complete with standard object behaviour (script, sequences, ..), graphical interface and associated scripts for animation, © templates for different types of "panels", e.g alarms, ‘© instructions on how to control e.g. a device ‘© a mechanism to prevent conflicting controls (Gf not provided with the SCADA), ‘© alarm levels, behavior to be adopted in case of specific alarms, F, POTENTIAL BENEFITS OF SCADA, ‘The benefits one can expect from adopting a SCADA system for the control of experimental physics facilities can be summarized as follows: ‘© atich functionality and extensive development facilities. The amount of effort invested in SCADA product amounts t0 50 t0 100 p- years! ‘© the amount of specific development that needs to be performed by the end-user is limited, especially with suitable engineering. ‘© reliability and robustness. These systems are used for mission critical industrial processes where reliability and performance are paramount. In addition, specific developmentis performed within a well-established framework that enhances reliability and robustness, ‘© Technical support and maintenance by the vendor. For large collaborations, as for the CERN LHC experiments, using a SCADA system for their controls, ensures a common framework not only for the development of the specific applications but also for ‘operating the detectors. Operators experience the same look and feel" whatever part of the experiment they control. However, this aspect also depends 10 a significant extent on proper engineering, XI. CONCLUSION ‘This Paper has described the importance of pile’s in the automation industry. And give the gernal and basic information about Ple’s history, operation, advantages, application in industry automation. As the cease study the area of ple is very wider in the industries world no one industries (ike manufacturing, software ete.) can run without the use of ple to competing the ‘market compaction, As we seen the great advantage of | pile’s it is very easy to handle the big industry with very few assessment. The Industries who use ple have less production cost so they survive in the market because now a days there is cut-throat completion in the market ‘who has fullill the needs of consumer with optimum price without satisfaction in QUALITY. So, Ple plays a ‘wide role in Automation Engineering. Aw industrial CADA sysiem will be used for the development of the controls of the four LHC experiments. This paper describes the SCADA systems in terms of their architecture, their interface to the process hardware, the functionality and the application development facilities, they provide. Some attention is also paid to the industrial standards to which they abide, their planned evolution as well as the potential benefits of thei use XII. REFERENCES [1] Bstever, E. marcos Building PLC automation project factory communication system, IEEE CNP une [2] Hugh Jack, Automated manufacturing system Programmable logic contol tm and Gupta , Programmable logic control and Industrial automation ,Panrom International publication , India [4] Pardeep Kumar Shrivastava, Exploring Programmable logic controller with application. BPP Publication, [5S] Manual book of Allen Bradley PLC [6] Factory manual of OTIS Elevator [7] ADaneels, W Salter, “Technology Survey Summary ‘of Study Repor, IT-CON98-08-09, CERN, Geneva 26" Aug1998,