Universal Electronic Module for Industrial Control Based on System on Chip Device

Industrial processes require rigorous monitoring and control of many parameters. The control systems for such processes must be accurate, fast in response, reliable and also inexpensive. Digital control systems offer comparable performance with analog counterparts but are more flexible in communication and data processing issue and, most important, have lower costs. These costs can be further decreased by using modern system on chip microcontrollers that integrate processing units, memory, timers, communication interfaces, converters and analog peripherals. Using such devices in control systems requires hardware design (design and testing of electronic schematics, PCB design, CAM processing) and software development, usually in C language or assembler, both associated with much higher costs than components´ costs. A decrease in development costs can be achieved only using a universal hardware and software platform, adapted to specific issues of controlled process. The paper identifies and studies common elements of different industrial control systems and presents a design for a digital control system that can be easily adapted to a specific industrial process of small complexity. This design consists of a system-on-chip based universal hardware module for industrial control and software libraries and tools to control it. There are now two applications, a controlled dryer for fruits and vegetables and a hydraulic damper test bench. Presentation will be focused on hardware and software design techniques that improve performances and reliability but keep costs in reasonable limit.