Computer aided engineering of distributed control systems

For a large plant, engineering the distributed control system in the shortest possible time is extremely important. Increasingly, it is being realised that cutting down the project cycle time is the key to success in the international market place. Most companies have therefore developed computer aided tools for control systems engineering rule design. These systems are proprietary in nature. The scope exists for developing tools that are more general and can be configured for a variety of systems. Further, they should be available for low end PC platforms so that even small organisations can readily use them. The authors describe a set of tools that have been developed for designing distributed control systems/PLCs by which the engineering cycle can be reduced considerably. Further, these tools permit rapid design changes with very little extra effort and remove the drudgery of repetitive work, freeing the engineer to focus on essential design problems