Delivering the Promise of the Virtual Plant

This podcast discusses a practical approach to building a virtual plant for testing control system application software and training operators. Recorded by Martin Berutti, MYNAH Technologies, March 2008.

Millions of dollars have been spent in the process industries in the quest for off-line simulation systems that duplicate the environment of the real automation system and process. This quest for the “virtual plant” has not always gone well. In many cases, the time and money spent developing off-line simulation systems has been wasted due to users and simulation vendors’ focus on model fidelity instead of good process dynamics and system integrity.
This is an unfortunate reality for many users, but there is a better way. The development of off-line simulation systems that realistically duplicate the automation system and process responses can be accomplished with a modest investment of time and money.