Low cost SCADA system for education

A prototype based on SCADA system was developed as a result of the final project of the discipline entitled Applied Microcontrollers to Control and Automation Engineering. This course has project based learning (PBL) methodology. The prototype has a drive unit and a computer program. This device was developed using a PIC18F4550 microcontroller and various electronic components: resistors, capacitors, LEDs, among others. The computer program was developed using programming language C Sharp (C #) in Visual Studio development environment. The interface between the program and the device is performed via USB communication. This prototype is now used in the discipline mentioned in order to teach practical lessons about embedded systems projects, USB communication, data acquisition and supervisory systems. As all stages of the project were presented to the students in a very detailed way and its development was performed on a real application, the students showed a lot of interest about this tool during the last school year.