PID 4.0: Controlador redundante de processos para a indústria 4.0 baseado em microsserviços

Abstract

Industry 4.0 starts the digitalization process and for this they have been using new technologies as Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Cloud Computing, Service Oriented Architectures and Networked Control Systems. The integrated use of these technologies in recent applications of automation and process control provide advantages, such as vertical interoperability and standardization of communication, through the sharing of networked services. Redundancy, in the automation industry, means keeping systems duplicate or triplicate in order to ensure availability for processes and critical devices. In view of the Industry 4.0 context, this work has developed a new approach to making redundancy of process controllers in the industry. The goal was to develop a redundant controller using a microservice-oriented automation architecture. The redundant controller (PID4.0) is based on modification of the PIDPlus algorithm for network process control and operation such as a microservice. Additionally, a redundancy application (orchestrator) is responsible for orchestrating microservices and recording control variables, allowing the sharing of data from process variables among redundant controllers (in replica). PID 4.0 can be allocated on different hardware, on the computer, or even on industrial cloud, providing versatility to this type of system. The project was developed in a microservice-oriented industrial process control pilot plant. Experimental results related to control performance and control mesh response time in different scenarios demonstrate the feasibility and robustness of implementing the redundant PID4.0 controller as a service. Additionally, a study of the impact of the way of communication between the services and the redundant controllers on control performance was carried out. This approach has a promising reduction in costs and development time of applications using controller virtualization, in addition to hardware reduction utilized.