Development of an Applied Automation Systems Simulator

Abstract

The common expectations of the business world in Turkey are that the vocational schools of highereducation and technical schools train students according to the needs of the industry. In the rapidlydeveloping automation sector there is serious shortage of technically skilled personnel. The only way toprovide the amount of skilled technical personnel up to the expectations of the industry can only beachieved by making the education in vocational schools oriented for the applied industry practice.The developed Applied Automation Systems Simulator is designed to be used in vocational and technicalschools and also can be used in enterprises in the industry for hands on training for the staff. Thissimulator is a training material that helps the technical personnel candidates who attend vocationaleducation to participate applied activities and to design new applications on their own.There exist the miniatures of all the electrical sensors used in the industrial production systems on thesimulator where students can participate in some predefined application examples, observe and gatherinfo about experiments made by the students using the software in the simulator. Hence an educationalenvironment where students can practice real life situations applied in the industry before going to thefield can be created and the students can learn how to make reasoning in such situations by improvingtheir skills.The developed simulator is compatible with all the PLC brands used in the industry therefore giving theability to test the programs written by the students in the software employed in the simulator. At the sametime by the use of microcontroller based control cards experimental studies can easily be made with thesimulator. The way to success in vocational and technical education is only possible by reinforcing thetheoretical education with hands on activities and experiential training. This simulator is capable of fillingthe gap in this field.

Özet

Türkiye’de iş çevrelerinin ortak beklentisi, mesleki ve teknik okulların yetiştirdiği teknik elemanların