Automatización de invernaderos aplicando la técnica hardware in the loop (HIL)

Abstract

In this work, an overview of how emerging technologies can be linked with the purpose of recreating the behavior of a greenhouse is obtained and from this, establish the control model that best fits the required behavior. The problem that was identified is a situation that has been affecting the peasants of the Cundi-Boyacense highlands year after year: in the early morning hours the temperature drops and this means that the crops are lost.

Using the "Hardware in the loop" (HIL) technique, the control algorithm is validated, which is executed in a simulated programmable logic controller (PLC), thus helping to test the behavior without physical prototypes. The advance of the new technologies that has been implemented both in the academic and professional environment are of great help since they allow us to idealize a required context and in this way validate the program routine to be established in the programmable logic controller (PLC); which must interact with the mathematical model that describes the system and in this way make possible a validation of its implementation in the operator panel or human machine interface (HMI).

The linking of these new technologies is in tune with this need, since it is very common that when faced with the characterization of a context such as that of a greenhouse; there are difficulties in making a direct validation in the field. This is a problem that exists both academically and professionally.

Through the implementation of different software and different Industrial communication protocols, the tools that the university currently has were linked: such as the programmable logic controller, the operator panels: allowing to establish the communication and idealization of the greenhouse as if it were in the field and thus validate the response that it describes.