FACILITATING KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION BY USE OF A SCADA APPLICATION IN ACADEMIC TEACHING

There is a strong feedback from industrial companies that students in automation engineering are not prepared well enough for challenges in the field. At the same time, students are less interested in practical applications, as their courses are more focused on mathematical characterization of industrial processes. Universities must address these issues and provide appropriate resources, available for the students, ensuring a competitive education that responds to the market requests. This paper provides a new hands-on teaching method that uses a SCADA application connected to a complex process simulator of a real plant. The application will allow students to easily achieve knowledge on remote data acquisition and control concepts, industrial communication protocols, to face real process control, interoperability, and industrial networking problems. The main aim is for them to gain practical abilities and elementary knowledge for the development of real applications, buy having as a starting point not an empty SCADA project, but one that needs to be updated with new functions or debugged for problem solving. By connecting the SCADA application to a process simulator, they will see how they can combine the scientific characterization and analysis of a problem with a practical implementation. The proposed platform uses standardized protocols and approaches, so that the achieved knowledge can be applied on applications from different manufacturers. By combining practical courses with challenging problem solving we managed to rise the interest of students. The results can be used to improve current courses and laboratories of SCADA application development or to provide new optional courses in this field.

工业企业普遍反馈，自动化工程专业学生对领域内实际挑战的准备程度不足。与此同时，由于课程多聚焦于工业过程的数学建模与表征，学生对实际应用的兴趣有所下滑。高等院校亟需针对此类问题作出改进，为学生提供适配性资源，以构建贴合市场需求、具备竞争力的教育体系。
本文提出一种全新的实操教学方法，该方法依托与真实工厂复杂过程模拟器相连的数据采集与监视控制系统（SCADA, Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition）应用。该平台可帮助学生系统掌握远程数据采集与控制概念、工业通信协议相关知识，助力其应对实际过程控制、互操作性及工业网络组网等实际问题。本教学方案的核心目标，是让学生获得开发实际应用所需的实操能力与基础专业知识，且教学起点并非从零搭建的空白SCADA项目，而是需要通过新增功能或调试排错来完善的既有项目。
通过将SCADA应用与过程模拟器对接，学生能够直观理解如何将问题的科学表征与分析同实际落地实施相结合。本教学平台采用标准化协议与技术路径，因此学生所学知识可直接应用于不同厂商的各类应用场景。
通过将实操课程与挑战性问题解决任务相结合，本研究有效提升了学生的学习兴趣。该研究成果可用于优化现有SCADA应用开发相关课程与实验环节，亦可为该领域新增选修课程提供实践参考。