Virtual Controllers

Abstract: Small ARM Cortex CPU based system boards, called controllers, are used in building automation for regulation of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. A controlling project can incorporate several thousands of these controllers. The controllers communicate with a SCADA system over the TCP/IP protocol. For the purpose of testing the Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) system when communicating with several hundred controllers simultaneously, a software implementation of a controller that can run in multiple instances, is needed. In this thesis, three different kinds of virtual controllers are proposed and evaluated for their performance. The performance data is based on controller’s response time and is acquired in a benchmark tool that is simulating SCADA. The implementation work consisted of designing and implementing a benchmark tool and three controller solutions: emulated, ported and simulated. The three solutions differ significantly in the number of instances that can be run simultaneously on the same machine. The conclusion is that the simulated solution is the most suitable since it can run in 6000 instances contra the ported with 200 instances. The emulated solution was eventually deemed as impractical to accomplish in the scope of this thesis.