Design of two experimental setups for programmable logic controller (PLC) laboratory

As programmable logic controllers (PLC) technology, programming languages and communication capabilities have advanced, PLCs offer many control devices to be attached directly to the PLC. For this reason PLC education became an important issue in many interdisciplinary engineering departments of the Universities. In this paper an automation set for the laboratory of PLC is developed which can be operated in various ways by programming a PLC as desired. The designed set also enables the students to understand the operation principle of an elevator. This developed educational laboratory set can be used as a practice for sensors and actuators, control systems and industrial automation courses. The laboratory tool also provides a method to improve learning outcomes, skills and the real-time experiences in engineering education such as electrical, electronics, mechatronics and control engineering.