Migration Of Industrial Process Control Systems To Service-Oriented Architectures

ABSTARCTThe use of Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs) in industrial automation promises an improved cross-layer integration as well as a functionality decoupled from the technical implementation. Compared with the earlier investigated manufacturing industry, control systems in the process industry reveal additional challenges in terms of migration from a legacy control system to an SOA control system.The successful migration of a highly integrated process control system, without reducing reliability or availability and, at the same time, preserving functionality and productivity, requires a detailed plan and certain specialised technology.This paper presents the challenges in the migration of a process control system and proposes a structured method for migration. The migration procedure proposed comprises four steps: initiation, configuration, data processing, and control execution. A technology demonstration at a pelletizing plant illustrates how the first of these steps could be implemented.