In one subsystem of the extremely large telescope (ELT) there are 132 Beckhoff PLCs running TwinCAT3, and this large amount has brought some interesting challenges to the ELT project. Upgrading the entire system one PLC at a time would be time consuming and prone to errors. When there is need for automation, the TwinCAT automation interface comes to the rescue. In the final part we go through the steps necessary to do the actual build and deployment to the software to all PLCs.

In part one of this series of posts an introduction was given to a very specific problem that needed to be solved in the ELT project. When doing software maintenance of a subsystem consisting of 132 PLCs, it’s not viable to do it manually as it would be prone to errors and be quite time consuming. In this part of this series we will investigate the more practical problems that needs to be solved for us to do the automated deployment of the software to all PLCs.

The extremely large telescope (ELT) is a telescope currently under design/construction. With its 39 meter wide segmented primary mirror, once finished, it will be the largest optical telescope built. Once it will start to collect photons it will open new frontiers and extend mankinds knowledge about the universe. It’s a project with collaboration across the globe involving many universities, industries and organizations. It’s a mighty instrument including many fields of engineering such as electrical-, mechanical-, optical- and software engineering. Alright you get it. The ELT is big, cool and everything… but what does that have to do with the TwinCAT automation interface?