Automation Master

Automation Master is an open source community maintained project. Automation Master was created to assist in the design, implementation and operation of an automated system.The installation and startup of any automated system is very time consuming and costly. Much of the time spent starting up an automated system can be traced to the difficulties in providing an effective test of the computer based system in the integrator's laboratory.Traditional testing techniques required staging as much of the equipment as practical in the laboratory, and wiring up a simulator panel containing switches and indicator lights to all of the I/O modules on the PLC. The operator stations would be connected up to this ""rats nest"" of wires, switches, indicator lights, and equipment for the test.PLC software would be tested by sequencing the toggle switches to input the electrical signals to the input cards on the PLC, and then observing the response by software on the indicator lights and operator consoles. For small simple systems, this type of testing was manageable, and resulted in some degree of confidence that the control software would work once it was installed. However, the amount of time spent performing the test was relatively high, and a real time test could not be achieved.As systems become larger and more complex, this method of testing only achieves, at a significant cost, a basic hardware and configuration check. The testing of complex logic sequences, is an act of futility without the ability to accurately reproduce the timing relationships between signals.What was needed was the ability to exercise the control system's software in a real time environment. Real time simulation fills this void. Real time simulators such as Automation Master are PC based software packages, which utilize a model to mimic the automated system's reaction to the control software.