A Testbed for Teaching Industrial Automation 4.0

ABSTRACT This paper explores the current flaws of the undergraduate syllabi treating Industrial Automation and Control. It elaborates on the disparities between the current syllabi and what is used in Industry; particularly the current trend of Industrial Automation. It looks at the effect of not meeting this trend in Industry and thus offers a solution in the form of another curriculum, which incorporates concepts of Industrial Automation 4.0 which are necessary for the workplace. It uses the core topics of this syllabus to build a testbed to help familiarise students with how all these concepts work together. This testbed is simply a system to monitor and control the temperature and the flow of water between two containers using a programmable logic controller and an AC Drive. It concludes with the limitations of the curriculum and concepts which could be used to expand the curriculum further to facilitate other topics which are used in Industry