A Limited-Instruction-Set Virtual Programmable Automatic Controller
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Abstract
This work presents techniques to develop cross-platform virtual programmable controller machine for reducing cost of using imported software and system in automation works. Its main work can be separated into 1) virtual machine architecture design 2) simulation software development and 3) hardware-software interface testing. For implementation, Python language is selected because of its portability to run in both Windows and Linux-based operating systems including mobile platforms such as Android phone. From the results of time-constraint experiments, the developed virtual machine can execute main instructions mimicking limited ladder diagram at reasonable speed for both simulation mode only and interfacing test based on Arduino nano hardware.
On Linux virtualization platform, if the virtual machine has input-output size under 64bit, its timer instruction can be executed at a good precision down to 100ms whereas the scan time can be less than 100ms for virtual machine up to 2,048bit input-output size. Moreover, the developed virtual machine is designed and tested to communicate with Arduino Nano leading to possibility in using the virtual machine with real external devices.
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Articles published in Journal of Industrial Technology Ubon Ratchathani Rajabhat University both hard copy and electronically are belonged to the Journal.
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