An Approach to Industrial Automation Based on Low-Cost Embedded Platforms and Open Software

Abstract

This paper presents a performance evaluation of the development of the instrumentation, communications and control systems of a two-tank process by using low-cost hardware and open source software. The hardware used for automating this process consists of embedded platforms (Arduino and Raspberry Pi) integrated into programmable logic controllers (PLCs), which are connected to a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system implemented with an open source Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) platform. The main purpose of the proposed approach is to evaluate low-cost automation solutions (hardware and software) within the framework of modern industry requirements in order to determine whether these technologies could be enabling factors of IIoT. The proposed control strategy for regulating tank levels combines the classic PID algorithm and the fuzzy gain scheduling PID (FGS-PID) approach. Fault detection capabilities are also enabled for the system through a fault detection and diagnosis module (FDD) implemented with an extended Kalman filter (EKF). The distributed controller’s (DC) algorithms are embedded into the PLC’s processors in order to demonstrate the flexibility of the proposed system. Additionally, a remote human to machine interface (HMI) is deployed through a web client of the IIoT application. Experimental results show the proper operation of the overall system.