Emulation of industrial Fieldbus modules for Virtual Commissioning

Abstract: The evolution of the industry, known as industry 4.0, has introduced new technologies such as Virtual Commissioning and Industrial Internet of things. Nowadays, virtual models of automated systems are being created in order to be tested while being built in real life, what includes PLC programs, robots, etc. In order to provide a real behaviour emulation, these virtual models should be as similar to reality as possible. Currently, the components communication in a real system is done through Internet with the use of fieldbuses I/O modules. Right now, these modules are not integrated in the virtual model, as the PLC program returns an error due to the hardware not being found. This implies that the PLC project must be modified, and a workaround must be done in order to connect the I/O cards components of the modules. Furthermore, it means that two PLC projects need to be maintained at the same time, one for the real system and another for the virtual system. In this thesis, a research was done to prove if fieldbuses modules could be emulated, helping to improve Virtual Commissioning. The final goal is to allow a PLC project created for a real system to be run again the corresponding virtual model without any change. To achieve this, a driver able to emulate the communication behaviour of an Ethernet/IP fieldbus module is developed and tested against a real PLC program.