Architecture Design for Internet-Based Control Systems

The Internet is playing an important role in information retrieval, and additionally industrial process manipulation. This paper describes an approach to writing requirements specifications for Internet-based control systems, from which architectures can be derived. The requirements specifications developed are described in terms of a functional model, which is then extended to form an information architecture. Distinct from the functional model, the information architecture provides an indication as to the architectural structure of subsequently developed Internet-based control systems. Three general control structures are generated from the analysis of an information architecture. An integrated-distributed architecture is derived as an ideal implementation, in which a control system is linked to the Internet at all levels of a control system hierarchy.