skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


Title: Programmable Logic Controllers in the Context of Industry 4.0
Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) are an established platform, widely used throughout industrial automation but poorly understood among researchers. This paper gives an overview of the state of the practice, explaining why this settled technology persists throughout industry and presenting a critical analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the dominant programming styles for today's PLC-based automation systems. We describe the software execution patterns that are standardized loosely in IEC 61131-3. We identify opportunities for improvements that would enable increasingly complex industrial automation applications while strengthening safety and reliability. Specifically, we propose deterministic, distributed programming models that embrace explicit timing, event-triggered computation, and improved security.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1836601
PAR ID:
10189418
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics
ISSN:
1551-3203
Page Range / eLocation ID:
1 to 1
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; ; ; ; (, Proc. of 21st IFAC World Congress)
    Programmable Logic Controllers are an established platform used throughout industrial automation, but rather poorly understood among researchers in the control systems community. This paper gives an overview of the state of the practice in industrial control systems while presenting a critical analysis of the dominant programming styles used in today's automation systems. We describe the patterns standardized loosely in IEC 61131-3 and, where there are ambiguities in the standard, realized in concrete vendor implementations. Ultimately, we suggest directions for further research towards enabling increasingly complex industrial control applications subject to the novel requirements of Industry 4.0 settings without compromising the safety and reliability guaranteed by the current industrial automation stack. 
    more » « less
  2. ; ; (, The 130th ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, June 25-28, 2023, Baltimore, MD)
    Our modern age is being forged by industrialization and automation. Processes that once required tedious handwork can now be completed with higher efficiency and consistent quality by machines and facilities that perform their operations automatically. Examples of automation technology in our daily lives are found in households where washing machines are used, on the streets where traffic lights regulate traffic, or even in buildings that use air-conditioning units and automatic lighting systems. Open-loop control systems or closed-loop control systems are used in all these systems to determine a predefined sequence of processing steps. The Industrial Manufacturing System (IMS) developed at the college intends to address the need for education. This project introduces how the production assembly line develops. The system consists of Sorting, Assembly, Processing, Testing, Storage, and Buffering operations. The Siemens Simatic PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) S7-300 is used in the manufacturing system and TIA (Total Integrated Automation) Portal is used as the programming environment. This project focuses on the automation of an industrial manufacturing system through several tools such as PLC, TIA PORTAL (V16), and PROFIBUS. The control of the whole system is implemented by using Siemens Sematic PLC. The main objective of this project is to create a fully automated production line for college education. The system consists of Buffering, Sorting, Assembly, Processing, Testing, Handling, and Storage to minimize the risk to workers’ health [1] and the occurrence of accidents and increase production efficiency. 
    more » « less
  3. ; ; ; ; ; (, ACM Computing Surveys)
    With the introduction of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, the automation industry is undergoing significant changes, particularly in improving production efficiency and reducing maintenance costs. Industrial automation applications often need to transmit time- and safety-critical data to closely monitor and control industrial processes. Several Ethernet-based fieldbus solutions, such as PROFINET IRT, EtherNet/IP, and EtherCAT, are widely used to ensure real-time communications in industrial automation systems. These solutions, however, commonly incorporate additional mechanisms to provide latency guarantees, making their interoperability a grand challenge. The IEEE 802.1 Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) task group was formed to enhance and optimize IEEE 802.1 network standards, particularly for Ethernet-based networks. These solutions can be evolved and adapted for cross-industry scenarios, such as large-scale distributed industrial plants requiring multiple industrial entities to work collaboratively. This paper provides a comprehensive review of current advances in TSN standards for industrial automation. It presents the state-of-the-art IEEE TSN standards and discusses the opportunities and challenges of integrating TSN into the automation industry. Some promising research directions are also highlighted for applying TSN technologies to industrial automation applications. 
    more » « less
  4. ; (, The Review of Economic Studies)
    Krueger, Dirk (Ed.)
    Abstract We argue theoretically and document empirically that aging leads to greater (industrial) automation, because it creates a shortage of middle-aged workers specializing in manual production tasks. We show that demographic change is associated with greater adoption of robots and other automation technologies across countries and with more robotics-related activities across U.S. commuting zones. We also document more automation innovation in countries undergoing faster aging. Our directed technological change model predicts that the response of automation technologies to aging should be more pronounced in industries that rely more on middle-aged workers and those that present greater opportunities for automation and that productivity should improve and the labor share should decline relatively in industries that are more amenable to automation. The evidence supports all four of these predictions. 
    more » « less
  5. ; (, 3rd International Workshop on Bots in Software Engineering.)
    null (Ed.)
    Student experiences in large undergraduate Computer Science courses are increasingly impacted by automated systems. Bots, or agents of software automation, are useful for efficiently grading and generating feedback. Current efforts at automation in CS education focus on supporting instructional tasks, but do not address student struggles due to poor behaviors, such as procrastination. In this paper, we explore using bots to improve the software engineering behaviors of students using developer recommendation choice architectures, a framework incorporating behavioral science concepts in recommendations to improve the actions of programmers. We implemented this framework in class-bot, a novel system designed to nudge students to make better choices while working on programming assignments. This work presents a preliminary evaluation integrating this tool in an introductory programming course. Our results show that class-bot is beneficial for improving student development behaviors increasing code quality and productivity. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email