Control System Architecture Selection in the Age of the Iot

Selecting a control system today presents many challenges to prospective users. The three main categories for a basic process control system (BPCS) are the distributed control system (DCS), programmable logic controller (PLC), and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system. A user must additionally decide whether a safety instrumented system (SIS) is required and, if so, how that system interfaces or interacts with the BPCS.

Meanwhile, we are in an unprecedented age of rapidly advancing technologies. They present a quandary to a prospective control system user. In light of the new technologies, will today’s BPCS architectures quickly find themselves obsolete? Or are there ways to evolve the control system to work with analytics, artificial intelligence, digital twins, machine learning, and “Internet of things” (IoT) architectures that comprise a new generation of sensors, wireless networks and cloud-based services?

Furthermore, will the BPCS support the digital transformation that your company has been planning and could it evolve into an open system?

This presentation will review today’s BPCS and safety technologies, describe the emerging “IoT” technologies and provide a roadmap to make the best of the latter while additionally evolving to support open architecture initiatives such as the Open Process Automation Forum (OPAF) O-PAS standard.