The customer’s R&D lab environment had multiple test stations, each with a variety of environmental and equipment sensors for conducting multi-day product and material experiments. The customer’s original logging solution connected the test stations to a single, obsolete Beckhoff TwinCAT 2 controller that collected the sensor data in a time-based CSV file. The customer requested a more flexible solution that would support the growth of their laboratory.  An upgraded system would provide additional data analysis tools for their scientists and the ability to add actuators and additional sensors for custom experiments.

Outlier collaborated with the customer to define a control system structure that would dedicate a PLC to each station, allowing the stations to be individually maintained and managed without affecting one another. Outlier provided a turn-key solution including electrical design, panel build, and control system hardware. From a software perspective, Outlier created a modular and consistent code base which was capable of allowing the customer’s team to maintain and expand the base PLC programming.  In order for the customer to quickly query and create data analysis based on their experiments, the data was logged to SQL database tables via Ignition Transaction groups. The resulting system was properly documented, labeled, and will support future expansion of the lab.