1.1 Motivation
Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC), a computing device invented by Richard E. Morley in 1968, have been widely used in industry including manufacturing systems, transportation systems, chemical process facilities, and many others. At that time, the PLC replaced the hardwired logic with soft-wired logic or so-called relay ladder logic (RLL), a programming language visually resembling the hardwired logic, and reduced thereby the configuration time from 6 months down to 6 days [Moody and Morley, 1999].
Although PC based control has started to come into place, PLC based control will remain the technique to which the majority of industrial applications will adhere due to its higher performance, lower price, and superior reliability in harsh environments. Moreover, according to a study on the PLC market of Frost and Sullivan [1995], an increase of the annual sales volume to 15 million PLCs per year with the hardware value of more than 8 billion US dollars has been predicted, though the prices of computing hardware is steadily dropping. The inventor of the PLC, Richard E Morley, fairly considers the PLC market as a 5-billion industry at the present time.
1.1動(dòng)力
1968年，Richard E. Morley創(chuàng)造出了新一代工業(yè)控制裝置可編程邏輯控制器(PLC),現(xiàn)在，PLC已經(jīng)被廣泛應(yīng)用于工業(yè)領(lǐng)域，包括機(jī)械制造也、運(yùn)輸系統(tǒng)、化學(xué)過(guò)程設(shè)備、等許多其他領(lǐng)域。初期可編程控制器只是用一種類(lèi)似于語(yǔ)言的軟件邏輯于代替繼電器硬件邏輯，并且使開(kāi)發(fā)時(shí)間由6個(gè)月縮短到6天。
雖然計(jì)算機(jī)控制技術(shù)已經(jīng)產(chǎn)生，但是PLC控制因?yàn)樗母咝阅?、成本低、并且?duì)惡劣的環(huán)境有很強(qiáng)的適應(yīng)能力而在工業(yè)控制的廣泛應(yīng)用中保持優(yōu)勢(shì)。而且，盡管硬件的價(jià)格在逐漸下跌，據(jù)估計(jì)，根據(jù)Frost和Sullivan對(duì)PLC市場(chǎng)的調(diào)查研究表明，每年銷(xiāo)售硬件的價(jià)格要比銷(xiāo)售PLC的價(jià)格（一千五百萬(wàn)）至少多出八十億美元。PLC的創(chuàng)造者Richard E. Morley十分肯定的認(rèn)為目前PLC市場(chǎng)是一個(gè)價(jià)值五十億的工業(yè)