Book Image

Industrial Automation from Scratch

By : Olushola Akande
Book Image

Industrial Automation from Scratch

By: Olushola Akande

Overview of this book

Industrial automation has become a popular solution for various industries looking to reduce manual labor inputs and costs by automating processes. This book helps you discover the abilities necessary for excelling in this field. The book starts with the basics of industrial automation before progressing to the application of switches, sensors, actuators, and motors, and a direct on-line (DOL) starter and its components, such as circuit breakers, contactors, and overload relay. Next, you'll explore VFDs, their parameter settings, and how they can be wired and programmed for induction motor control. As you advance, you'll learn the wiring and programming of major industrial automation tools – PLCs, HMIs, and SCADA. You’ll also get to grips with process control and measurements (temperature, pressure, level, and flow), along with analog signal processing with hands-on experience in connecting a 4–20 mA transmitter to a PLC. The concluding chapters will help you grasp various industrial network protocols such as FOUNDATION Fieldbus, Modbus, PROFIBUS, PROFINET, and HART, as well as emerging trends in manufacturing (Industry 4.0) and its empowering technologies (such as IoT, AI, and robotics). By the end of this book, you’ll have gained a practical understanding of industrial automation concepts for machine automation and control.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
1
Part 1: Learning the Concepts and Skills Required to Get Started
8
Part 2: Understanding PLC, HMI, and SCADA
14
Part 3: Process Control, Industrial Network, and Smart Factory

Understanding software/program in PLCs

Before looking into PLC programming languages, which this chapter is all about, let’s get some knowledge of the software/program in PLCs.

In computing, generally, software is a set of instructions written in a language the computer understands to perform a task. Software can also be reffered to as program.

A PLC requires two types of software that must be executed by the CPU for the PLC to function. They are as follows:

  • The operating system (firmware)
  • User program

The operating system is the program written by the PLC manufacturers and designed to run automatically in the PLC once powered. It is responsible for executing the user program, establishing communication between devices, memory management, and updating the output.

A PLC user program is a set of instructions in either textual or graphical form that represents the control function that will be carried out for a specific industrial task or application. It is the program that the...