Design and Implementation of an Architecture for a Remotely Operated PLC Laboratory Using Labview

In India, imparting practical knowledge about industrial automation to engineering students is still in its infancy. Technical facilities are available only at a few engineering colleges. As a result, it is necessary to share these facilities. One efficient way of doing this is through a remotely operated laboratory, where equipment related to automation, such as a PLC, can be used from distant places. This paper describes a LabVIEW based approach for remote operation of a Programmable Logical Controller (PLC). A client - server architecture was built using LabVIEW technologies, such as Data Socket and Network Variables, Web Service, and Remote Panels, to access and program the PLC through internet. A LabVIEW VI was created to provide virtual HMI for PLC operation. Various function blocks were developed to execute PLC operations. In addition, a report function was included to automatically document the experiments.