Architecture of Industrial

Automation Systems
Unit-1 ECE361
Chapter 2
 Lesson Objectives
• To describe the various elements of an Industrial
Automation Systems and how they are organized
hierarchically in levels.
• To explain how these levels relate to each other in
terms of their functions.
• To describe the nature of technologies involved in
realizing these functional levels
• To describe the nature of information processing in
these levels and the information flow among them
 The Functional Elements of Industrial
Automation

• The physical medium refers to the object where a physical

phenomenon is taking place and we are interested in the
measurement of some physical variable associated with the
phenomenon.
• For example, the physical medium may stand for the hot object
in a furnace in the case of temperature measurement or the fluid
in a pipe section in the case of measurement of liquid flow rate.
 The Functional Elements
of Industrial Automation
• The sensing element is affected by the
phenomenon in the physical medium either
through direct or physical contact or through
indirect interaction of the phenomenon in the
medium with some component of the sensing
element.
• A thermocouple probe is the sensing element
that often comes in physical contact with the
hot object such as the flue gas out of a boiler-
furnace or
 The Functional Elements of Industrial Automation
• The signal-conditioning element serves the function of altering
the nature of the signal generated by the sensing element.
• Since the method of converting the nature of the signal
generated in the sensor to another suitable signal form (usually
electrical) depends essentially on the sensor, individual signal
conditioning modules are characteristic of a group of sensing
elements.
• As an example consider a resistance Temperature Detector
(RTD) whose output response is a change in its resistance due to
change in temperature of its environment. This change in
resistance can easily be converted to a voltage signal by
incorporating the RTD in one arm of a Wheatstone's bridge.
• The bridge therefore serves as a signal-conditioning module.
 The Functional Elements of Industrial Automation
• The signal processing element is used to process the signal
generated by the first stage for a variety of purposes such as,
filtering (to remove noise), diagnostics (to assess the health of the
sensor), linearization (to obtain an output which is linearly related
with the physical measurand etc.
• The target signal-handling element may perform a variety of
functions depending on the target application.
• It may therefore contain data/signal display modules, recording
or/storage modules, or simply a feedback to a process control
system.
• Examples include a temperature chart recorder, an
instrumentation tape recorder, a digital display or an Analog to
Digital Converter (ADC) followed by an interface to a process
control computer.
 Industrial Actuator Systems
• Actuation systems convert the input signals
computed by the control systems into forms
that can be applied to the actual process and
would produce the desired variations in the
process physical variables.
 Industrial Actuator Systems

• Firstly it converts the form of the variable into the

appropriate physical variable, such as torque, heat
or flow.
• Secondly it amplifies the energy level of the signal
manifold to be able to causes changes in the process
variables.
• It turns out that in most cases, actuators are
devices that first produce motion from electrical
signal, which is then further converted to other
forms.
• A. The electronic signal-processing element
accepts the command from the control system
in electrical form. The command is processed in
various ways.
• For example it may be filtered to avoid
applying input signals of certain frequencies
that may cause resonance.
• B. The electronic power amplification element sometimes
contains linear power amplification stages called servo-
amplifiers. In other cases, it may comprise power
electronic drive circuits such as for motor driven actuators.
• C. The variable conversion element serves the function of
altering the nature of the signal generated by the
electronic power amplification element from electrical to
non-electrical form, generally in the form of motion.
Examples include electro-hydraulic servo valve,
stepper/servo motors, Current to Pneumatic Pressure
converters etc
• E. The non-electrical variable conversion elements may be
used further to transform the actuated variable in desired
forms, often in several stages. Typical examples include
motion-to-flow rate conversion in flow-valves, rotary to
linear motion converters using mechanisms, flow-rate to
heat conversion using steam or other hot fluids etc.
• F. Other Miscellaneous Elements such as Auxiliaries for
Lubrication/Cooling/Filtering, Reservoirs, Prime Movers
etc., sensors for feedback, components for display, remote
operations, as well as safety mechanisms since the power
handling level is significantly high.
 Industrial Control Systems
• By industrial control systems, we denote the
sensors systems, actuator systems as a controller.
• Controllers are essentially (predominantly
electronic, at times pneumatic/hydraulic)
elements that accept command signals from
human operators or Supervisory Systems, as well
as feedback from the process sensors and produce
or compute signals that are fed to the actuators.
• Control Systems can be classified into two kinds.
• Continuous Control
• Sequential & Logic Control
 Continuous Control
• This is also often termed as Automatic Control, Process
Control, Feedback Control etc.
• Here the controller objective is to provide such inputs to the
plant such that the output y(t) follows the input r(t) as closely
as possible, in value and over time.
 Continuous Control
• Most industrial control loop command signals are constant
signals that indicate desirable levels of process variables, such as
temperature, pressure, flow, level etc., which ensure the quality
of the product in Continuous Processes.
• In some cases, such as in case of motion control for machining,
the command signal may be continuously varying according to
the dimensions of the product. Therefore, here deviation of the
output from the command signal results in degradation of
product quality.
• It is for this reason that the choice of the feedback signals, that
of the controller algorithm (such as, P, PI or PID), the choice of
the control loop structure (normal feedback loop, cascade loop
or feed-forward) as well as choice of the controller gains is
extremely important for industrial machines and processes.
 Sequence / Logic Control
• Many control applications do not involve analog process
variables, that is, the ones which can assume a continuous range
of values, but instead variables that are set valued, that is they
only assume values belonging to a finite set. The simplest
examples of such variables are binary variables, that can have
either of two possible values, (such as 1 or 0, on or off, open or
closed etc.).
• These control systems operate by turning on and off switches,
motors, valves, and other devices in response to operating
conditions and as a function of time. Such systems are referred to
as sequence/logic control systems.
• For example, in the operation of transfer lines and automated
assembly machines, sequence control is used to coordinate the
various actions of the production system (e.g., transfer of parts,
changing of the tool, feeding of the metal cutting tool, etc.).
 Sequence / Logic Control
• Similarly, there are many industrial sensors (such as, Limit
Switch / Pressure Switch/ Photo Switch etc.) which provide
discrete outputs which may be interpreted as the
presence/absence of an object in close proximity, passing of
parts on a conveyor, or a given pressure value being higher or
lower than a set value.
• A modern controller device used extensively for sequence
control today in transfer lines, robotics, process control, and
many other automated systems is the Programmable Logic
Controller (PLC).
• In essence, a PLC is a special purpose industrial
microprocessor based real-time computing system, which
performs the sequential/logical functions in the context of
industrial operations
The Architecture of Elements:
The Automation Pyramid
 The Architecture of Elements: The Automation Pyramid
• Various layers represent the wideness ( in the sense of no. of devices ), and fastness of
components on the time-scale.
• Sensors and Actuators Layer: This layer is closest to the processes and machines,
used to translate signals so that signals can be derived from processes for analysis
and decisions and hence control signals can be applied to the processes. This forms
the base layer of the pyramid also called ‘level 0’ layer.
• Automatic Control Layer: This layer consists of automatic control and monitoring
systems, which drive the actuators using the process information given by sensors.
This is called as ‘level 1’ layer.
• Supervisory Control Layer: This layer drives the automatic control system by setting
target/goal to the controller. Supervisory Control looks after the equipment, which
may consist of several control loops. This is called as ‘level 2’ layer.
• Production Control Layer: This solves the decision problems like production targets,
resource allocation, task allocation to machines, maintenance management etc. This
is called ‘level 3’ layer.
• Enterprise control layer: This deals less technical and more commercial activities like
supply, demand, cash flow, product marketing etc. This is called as the ‘level 4’ layer.
 Level 2: Supervisory Control
• Supervisory control performs at a hierarchically higher level over the
automatic controllers, which controls smaller subsystems.
• Supervisory control systems perform, typically the following functions:
• Set point computation: Set points for important process variables are
computed depending on factors such as nature of the product, production
volume, mode of processing. This function has a lot of impact on
production volume, energy and quality and efficiency.
• Performance Monitoring / Diagnostics: Process variables are monitored
to check for possible system component failure, control loop detuning,
actuator saturation, process parameter change etc. The results are
displayed and possibly archived for subsequent analysis.
• Start up / Shut down / Emergency Operations : Special discrete and
continuous control modes are initiated to carry out the intended
operation, either in response to operator commands or in response to
diagnostic events such as detected failure modes.
 Level 3: Production Control
• Production control performs at a hierarchically higher level over
the supervisory controllers. Typical functions they perform are:
• Process Scheduling: Depending on the sequence of operations to
be carried on the existing batches of products, processing
resource availability for optimal resource utilization.
• Maintenance Management: Decision processes related to
detection and deployment of maintenance operations.
• Inventory Management: Decision processes related to
monitoring of inventory status of raw material, finished goods etc.
and deployment of operations related to their management.
• Quality Management : Assessment, Documentation and
Management of Quality
• Typically, the algorithms make use of Resource Optimization Technology and
are non-real-time although they may be using production data on-line.