digital oximeter – What Exactly Is Control Systems Engineering
Posted: August 4, 2010 at 3:24 am
Not many people know what exactly Control Systems Engineering is. It is a subset of Control Engineering, which encompasses any kind of engineering where control is involved. Simply speaking, taking a bunch of inputs, performing calculations and setting outputs to cause the desired reaction is a control system – which is what control engineering is all about. Control <i>systems</i> engineering, in its most common form, involves the control of electrical or otherwise powered machinery or equipment with analog and digital oximeter signals from some kind of control device. This includes, but is not limited to Integrated Controllers, Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC) or Remote Terminal Units (RTU). The latter is used where there are many remote sites which report back to a Central Monitoring Facility (CMF).
A full control system generally consists of the equipment itself, the electronic control layer as described above and a software package which sits on a computer or otherwise, which allows humans to interact with the equipment. This is usually referred to as a Human Machine Interface (HMI) or Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System (SCADA). These systems are generally buttons, numerical setpoints and displays which allow the operator to see exactly what is going on with the equipment – including faults, status, flows, pressure, levels et cetera. This allows faster fault finding, diagnostics and general information about the entire plant in one place.
So now that you know what exactly a control system is, what does being a control system engineer entail? Well, pretty simply, it involves the design of the two layers mentioned above. Depending on the project you are involved in, it may include both or just one of the components. Often, when working in a team, you will be designated within one of the two layers. This means that you will have to work closely with other members of the team so that the software layer looks at the correct places in memory of the control layer for the information to display.
For both layers, there are tons of different vendors and providers, all using different systems to communicate and control. Luckily, there are quite a few standards in place which means that there are big similarities between manufacturers. Because of this, the learning curve between products is usually not that hard, provided you know as least the first well. There are still differences however, which means that as a control systems engineer you need to be able to learn and adapt to different situations.
Being a control systems engineer is a challenging career choice but if you are into this kind of thing it can be incredibly rewarding. Not to mention that any kind of engineering pays very well! With a degree in electronics, control systems or mechatronic engineering, it is an obvious choice.
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