Analysis of dataflows within industrial control system design

Abstract

A design of industrial control system is a complex process which is usually divided into specific design steps. Results from antecedent step are generally inputs for the next step and there could be also other influences among steps. So there is a strong dataflow within an automation project especially if the range of designed system is large from the point of view of the signals count, components, variables, alarms and other messages etc. The ability of effective and reliable data transfer between the steps has significant influence on effectivity and quality of the design of an industrial control system. The main goal of the paper is an analysis of the design steps during the industrial control system design, definition of the dataflows between particular steps and description of a concept of automated system for data transmission within the design. The proposed concept is presented and evaluated on pilot industrial control system design project.