SCADA and Industrial Control Systems
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Objective: Understand the architecture of industrial control systems (sensors to PLC/DCS to SCADA/HMI), common communication protocols, and alarm design, and build the small-scale equivalent for your course project. Estimated time: 1-2 hours, due two class periods after assignment.
Your project is a miniature SCADA system: a microcontroller (the PLC), a Python script or dashboard (the HMI), and a serial link (the fieldbus). Making that mapping explicit is the fastest way to understand what you will see in industry. Study the SCADA Systems lesson from Data-Driven Engineering, then complete the activity below.
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Apply to Your Project
Draw the architecture diagram of your project mapped to industrial levels: field devices, controller, communication link, HMI/logging, and any safety interlock. Then:
Implement at least one of the recommendations (e.g., an over-temperature interlock in the microcontroller loop, or an alarm with a deadband in your dashboard) and demonstrate it.
What to Turn In
Add a section (about 1 page) to your project notebook and submit it as a PDF. Answer these questions:
- Include your architecture diagram with each element labeled by its industrial equivalent (field device, PLC, fieldbus, HMI).
- Which control functions in your project survive an HMI/laptop disconnect, and why is that separation standard practice in industry?
- What alarm or interlock did you implement? Show evidence it works (screenshot or data) and state its setpoint/deadband with justification.
- One question you missed in the architecture quiz and the corrected answer.