Low-cost and Portable Process Control Laboratory Kit

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate a new design of low-cost and portable laboratory kit that is prospective for supporting teaching and learning on the automation process. The kit consists of the water tank filling system (sizes of 50 mL; as a model for describing reallistic tank in the plant) equipped with a programmable logic controller (PLC) integrated with SCADA system, human machine interface (HMI) monitor, reservoir, temperature, water level sensors, mixer, and heater. To be adaptable in any types of classroom, the kit was placed on the portable table (length x width x height of 100 x 50 x 150 cm). To approach the industrial tank system in industry, the tank was designed to be mixed and connected to other tank, and the temperature and water volumetric (water level) was controllable. To examine the impact of the designed kit on the improvement of teaching and learning process, the problem based learning (PBL) approach was also conducted in class. The economic analysis result showed that the present kit is inexpensive and portable, compared to other commercially available kits/devices. The PBL results showed that the kit is simple and to give better illustrations for students to comprehend the process control system in the realistic application in industry. Further developments of this kit is potentially implemented as an experimental tool for undergraduate students

Deep Learning-Based, Passive Fault Tolerant Control Facilitated by a Taxonomy of Cyber-Attack Effects

In the interest of improving the resilience of cyber-physical control systems to better operate in the presence of various cyber-attacks and/or faults, this dissertation presents a novel controller design based on deep-learning networks. This research lays out a controller design that does not rely on fault or cyber-attack detection. Being passive, the controller’s routine operating process is to take in data from the various components of the physical system, holistically assess the state of the physical system using deep-learning networks and decide the subsequent round of commands from the controller. This use of deep-learning methods in passive fault tolerant control (FTC) is unique in the research literature. The proposed controller is applied to both linear and nonlinear systems. Additionally, the application and testing are accomplished with both actuators and sensors being affected by attacks and /or faults

Bibliographical review on cyber attacks from a control oriented perspective

This paper presents a bibliographical review of definitions, classifications and applications concerning cyber attacks in networked control systems (NCSs) and cyber-physical systems (CPSs). This review tackles the topic from a control-oriented perspective, which is complementary to information or communication ones. After motivating the importance of developing new methods for attack detection and secure control, this review presents security objectives, attack modeling, and a characterization of considered attacks and threats presenting the detection mechanisms and remedial actions. In order to show the properties of each attack, as well as to provide some deeper insight into possible defense mechanisms, examples available in the literature are discussed. Finally, open research issues and paths are presented.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

A Systematic Two-Layer Approach to Develop Web-based Experimentation Environments for Control Engineering Education

This paper introduces the systematic approach currently used by the Department of Computer Science and Automatic Control of the Spanish University of Distance Learning (UNED) to develop Web-based laboratories for distance learning of topics with high technical contents such as control engineering. This approach differentiates two layers in the construction of web- based laboratories: the experimentation layer and the e-learning layer. For the experimentation layer, LabVIEW and data acquisition boards from National Instruments are used to create the server-side applications and Easy Java Simulations for the client-side interfaces. For the e-learning layer, the eMersion environment is used to support the required flexible educational scheme. This paper describes the programming techniques implemented and the design considerations that justify these particular choices. As an llustrative case-study, an example of development of a web-based application is discussed, in which an electrical drive servo-motor is introduced as a convenient setup to practice with motion control applications. Other significant examples of web-based experiments developed by the authors are also reported