The Death of PLCs (Program Logic Control) Is Coming | Hacker News Reader

The Death of PLCs (Program Logic Control) Is Coming

4 pointsranjithdsm4 comments

We have been working on #Industry4.0 Implementation and Industrial automation for more than 4 years. We see that the requirements are continuously changing to have more control on the operation and at the same time the data need to be sent and managed from the central server.

Today in the traditional system, we have a #HMI which has some program running to ensure that the human communication is transformed to send commands to PLC for it to read from sensors and write to actuator interfaces. PLC programs are done to work in tandem with the HMI.

In our projects, we were able to read and write via Digital interfaces to get the automation done bye passing the PLC. I believe we will be able to achieve the same with the analog interfaces as well.

Why such smart IoT Devices will replace PLCs on the long run.

1. Data communication both the ways comes by default enabling centralized control. 2. No need for the local data or instructions anymore. 3. Devices has become robust as PLCs running 24 X 7 for years in Industrial conditions. 4. Most Important point- No need to do programming at two places. 5. The customizable functional blocks of PLCs will be replaced with NO CODE / LOW Code application being embedded into these devices.

This is something that will happen over the next 10 years. There is a equal chance of PLC getting evolved with much better sophistication and merge the HMI programming into its layer and HMI will be just displays and eventually become the current day micro devices.

My Post on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7031122084877455360/

Have you considered safety, and the regulations regarding such within Automation?

I totally agree IIoT has a place in the picture and can better perform many of the functions that a carried out using a PLC today.

I am fairly confident the PLC will not be replaced completely, due to a few things namely real time os, memory mapping, STL etc. I think its more likely as you say at the end of you post The PLC will evolve (and already is) to include many of the smart functions carried out by IIoT.

magical thoughts :)

This post author probably heavily impressed by images from Tesla plants :) But there are a lot of places controlled by some PLCs for 30 or more years. I’m totally agree, those cases need to be revised and sooner it better ;) But big annonces of death of something, some more experiences requires.

It still be easy to create your control system based on well established and proven platforms (as PLC). Newest PLC platforms give you limitless (close to) possibility for structure implementation (not always centralized as mentioned).

Surely, the Arduino-like platforms well situated for some OEM’s or educational preposes. Do not limit your creativity. All programs are the tails (not allways “fairy tales”). You should read some bigger book, not only beautiful poems ;)

Stay inspired.

Thanks for your insights. Definitely in the past few decades, PLCs has evolved a lot However I believe the time has come to evolve further.

The replacement will come on the smaller functional ones to start with.

Part of the reason PLCs (and to a certain extent DCS) exist today is because the range of skills required to design and build real time control and safety systems spans so much that wildly bespoke programming environments on top of all that are not really welcome.

Big Company wants to know that they got a system where they can get another guy off the street and he has a chance of working out how it all fits together and solve a problem that has occured, hardware or software.

Part of that can occur because of certain levels of standardisation in the architecture and code.

If you were starting again from scratch today, maybe the PLC is not the place you would go to first up, but the inertia is high. Specialised systems like Safety PLCs have extensive diagnostics integrated into firmware, and it is really only with these diagnostics that suitable performance can be arrived at.

If you were do bespoke micro or server based type implementations, that's easily doable today, but all the design and testing for custom system parts done by OEM firmware would kill you, unless you are making a shitload of whatevers, eg automobile industry.

If what you are saying is likely in the short tem, why haven't I s=for the last ten years been buying process sub-systems arriving integrated with a raspberry PI running the show as a local package controller? It would save some capital dollars, but this just hasn't been happening, for a lot of reasons including above.

If I can get STM and TI $5 microcontrollers with SIL 2 capability (or SIL 3 with HFT=1) why am I paying 25k for a Siemens PLC safety CPU? - for all the firmware and support of a large company making a mass produced device that can be programmed by tens of thousands of people around the world, probably more. Plus a global system of dealers and reps that sell parts that I know I can add on and make work out of the box, eg more I/O or a comms card or maybe a CPU with more memory and faster CPU, just download the same program, etc etc

So, a certain part of the market will move to Industry 4.0 controller etc over time as opportunities present and this is the best option, but only a part and only as it becomes viable and economically attractive. For many big plants where a processing train generates say, a billion dollars in revenue pa, capital cost of the controllers is not actually very high on the list of considerations, safety and availability are kings. Avoidance of downtime - save a few minutes a year of downtime, you can put the msot expensive controller you can find in there and still be in front.

Finally, and I am sure there will be many people where this does not fit, but IT people normally do not do real time industrial controls well, compared to electrical engineers, process engineers and their ilk. There is just too much non IT stuff of technical nature you got to understand in all sorts of detail, a lot of management know this at different levels and are wary.

I have personally witnessed numerous disasters where it was "we will just get the IT guys to run with that, it is only a fancy computer after all" (or "it has a blue hose ethernet cable going to it, it must be IT, let them look after it")

And there is no "Just send that email again" equivelent in industrial controls, it is relatively small amounts of data that has to get there, on time, every time.

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