Real-time automated control of a resistive furnace

We have been listening for a long time to the wide functionality that industrial automation technologies can offer for improving the processes and adding security to the plants and the parts of them. However the price and an unstable market have restricted the deployment of such systems. Nowadays, companies offer too technology-dependent solutions which do not cover user demands completely. Meanwhile, papers from the literature focus on small innovations on specific parts of the industrial automation systems, which do not consider integration and deployment issues, in order to present practical designs [1]. The system presented in this work considers user requirements, including novel advances, all in an integral automation solution suitable for thermal treatments. The modular nature of the architecture allows direct adaptation to specific cases using standard technologies, and a proposal of an IP-based network for connecting the main automation module with the rest of plant.