Adding an HMI to your Programmable Automation Controller (PAC)

As the industrial landscape continues to move toward a more automated environment, engineers implementing monitoring and control applications encounter increasingly complex systems. Such industrial control systems often consist of independent Programmable Automation Controllers (PACs) managing specific, individual tasks. As these distributed systems increase in complexity, the control and monitoring tasks must be divided among several such PACs, networked together. Ensuring proper operation of this distributed industrial process requires the direction of system managers and operators. Yet while a central control hub is appropriate for managerial supervision, the distributed system is incomplete without Human Machine Interfaces (HMIs) for more direct interaction. The LabVIEW Touch Panel module completes the National Instruments offering for managing remote systems by extending the LabVIEW graphical programming environment to rugged HMI industrial computers. This application note discusses the benefits of the LabVIEW Touch Panel module and provides a detailed step-by-step tutorial for adding an HMI to your existing PAC system.