Session F4C 0-7803-6669-7/01/$10.00 © 2001 IEEE October 10 - 13, 2001 Reno, NV 31 st ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference F4C-12 SOFTWARE TOOLS FOR HELPING WITH THE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AUTOMATION PROJECTS Antonio M. López 1 , Víctor M. González 2 , José M. Enguita 3 , Felipe Mateos 4 and Antonio Robles 5 1 Antonio M. López, University of Oviedo, Ingeniería de Sistemas y Automática, Campus de Viesques, 2.1.15, 33204 - Gijón, Spain. antonio@isa.uniovi.es 2 Víctor M. González, University of Oviedo, Ingeniería de Sistemas y Automática, Campus de Viesques, 2.1.14, 33204 - Gijón, Spain. victor@isa.uniovi.es 3 José M. Enguita, University of Oviedo, Ingeniería de Sistemas y Automática, Campus de Viesques, 2.1.14, 33204 - Gijón, Spain. chema@isa.uniovi.es 4 Felipe Mateos, University of Oviedo, Ingeniería de Sistemas y Automática, Campus de Viesques, 2.2.04, 33204 - Gijón, Spain. felipe@isa.uniovi.es 5 Antonio Robles, University of Oviedo, Ingeniería de Sistemas y Automática, Campus de Viesques, 2.2.10, 33204 - Gijón, Spain. arobles@isa.uniovi.es Abstract  The practical teaching of process automation requires laboratories equipped with a great variety of tools. The ideal configuration of a laboratory desk could be one made up of real, hardware components. Although the students will have the highest motivation with such configuration, the cost and the lack of flexibility are fundamental drawbacks that must be solved. A balance must be achieved between real and virtual components, which will lead to a balanced cost and flexibility without decreasing the students motivation and the quality of education. This balanced solution is presented in this paper. Index Terms  Automation teaching, Control, Laboratory equipment, Process simulation, Supervision. INTRODUCTION The practical teaching of process automation requires laboratories equipped with a great variety of tools. The ideal configuration of a laboratory desk could be the following: 1. At least one controller such as a programmable logic controller (PLC), a personal computer (PC) or a micro controller. 2. A process, or a model of the process to be controlled. 3. A personal computer to run a SCADA (Supervisory, Control and Data Acquisition) software to supervise the process. The use of our own software tools specifically designed for helping with the implementation of automation projects, has shown to be of great utility for the teacher as much as for the students. Their great flexibility allows proving many different control strategies from the simplest ones to the most complex. At the same time, their low cost permits reducing the number of students assigned to a workstation, providing each student with more hands-on experience. Such tools, given in Figure 1, are presented in this paper: an industrial process simulator, Prosimax, a PLC programming tool based on SFC (Sequential Function Chart), Mediss, a PLC simulator, Winss5, and a SCADA software, Scalibur. These applications are part of a bigger research project called GENIA (Integrated Automation ENvironment Group, http://isa.uniovi.es/genia ) which aim is the total integration of all them with the most common tools of an ordinary automation laboratory. SUPERVISION CONTROL PROCESS Operator Pannel PC + SCADA Cabled Logic PLC’s PC + I/O Card Microcontroller I/O Simulator Real process Models SCAlibur Mediss Winss5 Prosimax Integrated Automation ENvironment Group Visgraf FIGURE 1 AUTOMATION LABORATORY A concrete example is used throughout the paper to show the educational enhancements that can be reached by using these applications. AUTOMATION PROJECT EXAMPLE The goal is to design an automaton to fill a cart with some liquid made up of two different components ‘A’ and ‘B’, and transport it from one place to another. The system configuration is shown in Figure 2. FIGURE 2 MIXING PROCESS SCHEME The following shows the behaviour of the process. Control Pannel THERE HERE MR ML EMPTY LALARM CMR CML ACK CEMPTY LEVEL