Remote Wireless Control of a Bottling Process

Over the last ten years, remote wireless monitoring and control has become an integral part of industrial automation systems.Remote monitoring is used in such diverse areas as automobile assembly, oil and process control, analyzing temperature in heat exchangers, deployment of resources on a smart grid, and environmental measurements.This paper describes a remote wireless monitoring and control system used in a senior level industrial automation course.This course is offered by distance (interactive video) to community colleges in the state.The industrial process consists of Human Machine Interface (HMI) software that utilizes a series of ActiveX controls to operate a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA/HMI) bottling process.The ActiveX controls were written by the author in Visual Studio.Each ActiveX control represents a component in the process, such as a switch, light, bottle, solenoid, cap, and conveyor.Individual components can be displayed and animated by writing code that connects them to the bottling process.Students use the ActiveX controls to first program a simulation in Visual Studio 2010.They then connect to the bottling system using real time data from the process.Distance students can program Visual Studio to release a solenoid and allow the bottle to move to a fill station and monitor the system while a label and cap is placed on the bottle.The bottling process is controlled by a Remote Terminal Unit (RTU) that is connected to a central data server through MODBUS.Students access the central data server through a static IP address.This course gives students direct experience with modern industrial programmable controllers, wireless industrial networking,