Architecture of Industrial

Automation Systems
 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 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.
The Functional Elements of Industrial Automation
(1: Sensor)
 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.
• 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
• An optical pyrometer which compares the brightness of a hot
body in the furnace with that of a lamp from a distance
through some window and does not come in direct contact
with the furnace.
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.
 Example:- 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 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:- 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.
 (2:Actuator)
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 manyfold 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.
• Example:- it may be filtered to avoid applying input
signals of certain frequencies that may cause resonance.
• Many actuators are themselves closed feedback
controlled units for precision of the actuation operation.
Therefore the electronic signal-processing unit often
contains the control system for the actuator itself.
 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.
• Examples - 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.
2001/2003
 Industrial Control Systems
 In industrial control systems:-
The sensors systems and actuator systems acts as a controller.

• Controllers are essential (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 feed to the actuators.
 Control Systems can be classified:-
• Continuous Control
• Sequential & Logic Control
 Continuous Control

 This is also often termed as Automatic Control, Process

Control, Feedback Control etc.
• 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 piecewise
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.
 Continuous Control

• A single physical device may act as the controller for one or more
control loops (single-loop/multi-loop controller).
• Today, many loop controllers supplement typical control laws such
as PID control by offering adaptive control and fuzzy logic
algorithms to enhance controller response and operation. PID
and startup self-tuning are among the most important features.
• Software is an important factor in loop controllers. Set-up,
monitoring and auto-tuning and alarm software for loop
controllers is now a common feature.
• The controllers also accept direct interfacing of process sensors
and signals. Choice of inputs includes various types of
thermocouples, RTDs, voltage 0 to 10 V dc, or current 4 to 20 mA.
• While most sophisticated controllers today are electronic,
pneumatic controllers are still being used.
• Pneumatic controllers are easy to use, easy to maintain.
 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. 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.
• 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).
• 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
 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 2: Supervisory Control
• Control Reconfiguration/Tuning: Structural or Parametric
redesign of control loops are carried out, either in response
to operator commands or in response to diagnostic events
such as detected failure modes. Control reconfigurations
may also be necessary to accommodate variation of
feedback or energy input e.g. gas fired to oil fired.
• Operator Interface: Graphical interfaces for supervisory
operators are provided, for manual supervision and
intervention.
• Computationally these are a mixture of hard and soft real
time algorithms. These are also often very expensive and
based on proprietary knowledge of automating specific
classes of industrial plants.
 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.