An industrial communication networks laboratory for distributed automation systems

Industrial communication networks are a difficult subject to teach due to the wide range of standards found in industry for communicating systems and processes. In this article, a new approach is proposed; the methodology allows the student to deal with all the different steps involved in automation systems when the creation of a whole automation pyramid is pursued. This task is achieved in ten 3-hour tab sessions, following a rotating strategy in certain sessions. The course is developed around an almost real application: a simplified 'cookie factory'. Every session is part of the complete automation system, thus, the student builds the whole system step by step, from the sensor/actuator level to the management level including Ethernet connection, Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA), and Hunum-Machine Interfaces (HMI).