dedshaw1612

Controls and Problem Solving Theory

4 posts in this topic

Does anyone know of any books that have theories on how certain problems can be broken down. Not necessarily from a controls perspective such as PID bode plots etc but more like a huge book that digs deep into tools such as K-maps for problem solving? I encountered a problem not to long ago and timing diagrams wouldn't suffice and a k-map was just barely good enough to break it up into its smallest parts (this was for a PLC program). Essentially i was writing alarm conditions and was having trouble making sure all the possible fail conditions had an appropriate alarm and system response. Thanks

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I do not know of books for for problem solving approaches, but we did implement a similar approach through state machine programming. We used Microsoft Visio to flowchart a complete PLC program, implementing modes (startup, resetting, reset, starting, started, running, etc.) and states for each mode. There are PackML template PLC programs out there that have modes and states integrated into it (and associated HMI application). http://omac.org/news/omac-members-share-solutions-implementing-isa-tr-88-packml Personally, we found the PackML Allen-Bradley template to have tons of unused code and a large AOI (Add-On Instruction) that was difficult to troubleshoot (i.e., the tags feeding the AOI did not match the internal tags making for lengthy troubleshooting time). I prefer to program in states today. Should you encounter a new situation that does not have a state, your program will hang prior to that particular state making it very, very easy to find the snag (and code a work around or alarm condition). I have example programs if you need.

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IMHO, State Programmaing is best for nearly all discrete applications and the most efficient way for building these is with SFC where each Function can be written in any of the available programming languages to take advantage of their strengths.

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Two thumbs up to RussB! I absolutely agree, State-Based Programming is one of the most reliable approaches towards developing a robust control program.

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