RT Journal Article
T1 Integration of Sensors, Controllers and Instruments Using a Novel OPC Architecture
A1 González, Isaías
A1 Calderón, Antonio José
A1 Barragán Piña, Antonio Javier
A1 Andújar Márquez, José Manuel
AB The interconnection between sensors, controllers and instruments through a communication network plays a vital role in the performance and effectiveness of a control system. Since its inception in the 90s, the Object Linking and Embedding for Process Control (OPC) protocol has provided open connectivity for monitoring and automation systems. It has been widely used in several environments such as industrial facilities, building and energy automation, engineering education and many others. This paper presents a novel OPC-based architecture to implement automation systems devoted to R&D and educational activities. The proposal is a novel conceptual framework, structured into four functional layers where the diverse components are categorized aiming to foster the systematic design and implementation of automation systems involving OPC communication. Due to the benefits of OPC, the proposed architecture provides features like open connectivity, reliability, scalability, and flexibility. Furthermore, four successful experimental applications of such an architecture, developed at the University of Extremadura (UEX), are reported. These cases are a proof of concept of the ability of this architecture to support interoperability for different domains. Namely, the automation of energy systems like a smart microgrid and photobioreactor facilities, the implementation of a network-accessible industrial laboratory and the development of an educational hardware-in-the-loop platform are described. All cases include a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) to automate and control the plant behavior, which exchanges operative data (measurements and signals) with a multiplicity of sensors, instruments and supervisory systems under the structure of the novel OPC architecture. Finally, the main conclusions and open research directions are highlighted.
PB MDPI
SN 1424-8220
YR 2017
FD 2017-06-27
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10272/14236
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10272/14236
LA eng
NO González, I., Calderón, A. J., Barragán, A. J., & Andújar, J. M. (2017). Integration of Sensors, Controllers and Instruments Using a Novel OPC Architecture. Sensors (Basel, Switzerland), 17(7), 1512. http://doi.org/10.3390/s17071512
NO This work is a contribution of the DPI2015-71320-REDT Project supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva
RD 1 jun 2026