Distributing PLC control

In this paper we address the problem of distributing PLC control over an industrial network. We consider a synchronous industrial network, where data transmission delays can be computed and known in advance. We consider a particular class of PLC control applications, namely applications that support periodic input acquisition. It is shown how control specified with the Grafcet language can be achieved in a distributed PLC control system, when data delivery delays are not negligible, and how the input acquisition period can be by minimized. A technique is introduced to transform the Grafcet diagram of a PLC application into one that can be executed in a distributed environment.