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Motives for Compromising the Security of an Industrial Control System

Motives for Compromising the Security of an Industrial Control System

There are multiple motives for compromising the security of an industrial control system, some of which…


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Glossary of Cyber-security Terms

Glossary of Cyber-security Terms

Cyber-security seems to have its own vocabulary, ranging from unwieldy technical acronyms to slang terms…


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Input/Output (I/O) Capabilities of PLCs

Input/Output (I/O) Capabilities of PLCs

Every programmable logic controller must have some means of receiving and interpreting signals from real-world…


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Basic Components Common to all Radio Systems

Basic Components Common to all Radio Systems

“Radio” systems use electromagnetic fields to communicate information over long distances through…


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Motives for Compromising the Security of an Industrial Control System

Motives for Compromising the Security of an Industrial Control System

There are multiple motives for compromising the security of an industrial control system, some of which…


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What is Internet Protocol (IP)?

What is Internet Protocol (IP)?

I remember first learning about the world-wide Internet, and wondering what it actually looked like. The first…


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Ethernet networks: Repeaters, Cabling and Switching Hubs

Ethernet networks: Repeaters, Cabling and Switching Hubs

An engineer named Bob Metcalfe conceived the idea of Ethernet in 1973, while working for the Xerox research…


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Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP)

Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP)

At the next OSI Reference Model layer (layer 4) is a set of protocols specifying how reliable communication…


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Glossary of Cyber-security Terms

Glossary of Cyber-security Terms

Cyber-security seems to have its own vocabulary, ranging from unwieldy technical acronyms to slang terms…


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Chromatography: Methods, Detectors and Species

Chromatography: Methods, Detectors and Species

Imagine a major marathon race, where hundreds of runners gather in one place to compete. When the starting gun…


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Digital PID Controllers

Digital PID Controllers

The vast majority of PID controllers in service today are digital in nature. Microprocessors executing PID…


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Pipe and Pipe Fittings

Pipe and Pipe Fittings

Pipe is a hollow structure designed to provide an enclosed pathway for fluids to flow, usually manufactured…


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Open-ended, Shorted, and Properly Terminated Transmission Lines

Open-ended, Shorted, and Properly Terminated Transmission Lines

Many years ago, when I was first learning about electricity, I happened to discover a length of coaxial…


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Electrical Signal and Control Wiring

Electrical Signal and Control Wiring

There is much to be said for neatness of assembly in electrical signal wiring. Even though the electrons…


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Analog to Digital Conversion and ADCs

Analog to Digital Conversion and ADCs

In order to provide an interface between the internal (digital) world of a computer and the external (analog)…


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Basics of Bridge Circuits

Basics of Bridge Circuits

A bridge circuit is basically a pair of voltage dividers where the circuit output is taken as the difference…


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ANSI/IEEE Function Number Codes

ANSI/IEEE Function Number Codes

In the United States, the ANSI and IEEE organizations have standardized a set of numerical codes referring to…


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Ultrasonic (Sound) Echo Level Measurement

Ultrasonic (Sound) Echo Level Measurement

A completely different way of measuring liquid level in vessels is to bounce a traveling wave off the surface…


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Introduction to Modbus

Introduction to Modbus

Developed by the Modicon company (the original manufacturer of the Programmable Logic Controller, or PLC) in…


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Digital Representation of Numerical Data

Digital Representation of Numerical Data

Process measurements are often of an analog nature: the temperature of a furnace, the rate of fluid flow…


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Examples of PLC Systems

Examples of PLC Systems

Programmable logic controllers are essentially nothing more than special-purpose, industrial computers. As…


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Policy-based Fortifications

Policy-based Fortifications

These fortifications focus on human behavior rather than system design or component selection. In some ways…


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Relating 4 to 20 mA Signals to Instrument Variables

Relating 4 to 20 mA Signals to Instrument Variables

A 4 to 20 mA current signal represents some signal along a 0 to 100 percent scale. Usually, this scale is…


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Process Flow Diagrams

Process Flow Diagrams

To show a practical process example, let’s examine three diagrams for a compressor control system,…


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Proportional-only Offset

Proportional-only Offset

A fundamental limitation of proportional control has to do with its response to changes in setpoint and…


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the Negative Consequences of Poor PID Controller Tuning

the Negative Consequences of Poor PID Controller Tuning

Much has been written about the benefits of robust PID control. Increased productivity, decreased equipment…


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Displacement and Displacer Level Instrumentation

Displacement and Displacer Level Instrumentation

Displacer level instruments exploit Archimedes’ Principle to detect liquid level by continuously…


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Supervisory Control

Supervisory Control

In a manually-controlled process, a human operator directly actuates some form of final control element…


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Derivative (Rate) Control

Derivative (Rate) Control

The final element of PID control is the “D” term, which stands for derivative. This is a calculus…


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Self-regulating, Integrating, and Runaway Process Characteristics

Self-regulating, Integrating, and Runaway Process Characteristics

Perhaps the most important rule of controller tuning is to know the process before attempting to adjust the…


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Conservation Laws

Conservation Laws

The Law of Mass Conservation states that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. The Law of Energy…


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References

References

Lipták, Béla G. et al., Instrument Engineers’ Handbook – Process Measurement and Analysis Volume I,…


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Polyphase AC Power

Polyphase AC Power

“Polyphase” means “many phases,” describing a form of AC electrical system where…


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Process and Instrument Diagrams

Process and Instrument Diagrams

The next level of detail is the Process and Instrument Diagram, or P&ID. Here, we see a “zooming…


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Practical Measures of Reliability

Practical Measures of Reliability

In reliability engineering, it is important to be able to quantity the reliability (or conversely, the…


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Laser Spectroscopy

Laser Spectroscopy

A laser is a light source emitting waves of light that not only share the exact same frequency (color)…


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Diagnosing Feedback Control Problems

Diagnosing Feedback Control Problems

Negative feedback systems, in general, tend to cause confusion for those first learning their fundamental…


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Introduction to Optical Analysis

Introduction to Optical Analysis

Light is known to interact with matter in very specific ways, which may be exploited as a means of measuring…


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Transformer Basics and Principles of Operation

Transformer Basics and Principles of Operation

The transformer is one of the most important components in all of AC circuitry. Principally used to…


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Level Gauges (Sightglasses)

Level Gauges (Sightglasses)

Level gauges are perhaps the simplest indicating instrument for liquid level in a vessel. They are often found…


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Practical Topic Coverage

Practical Topic Coverage

Nearly every technical course teaches and tests students on definitions, basic concepts, and at least some…


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Auxiliary and Lockout (86) Relays

Auxiliary and Lockout (86) Relays

An important type of “accessory” relay, especially for legacy electromechanical protective relays,…


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