Embedded Control & Automation

Firmware, PLCs and industrial networks. Microcontrollers and real-time control firmware, PLC programming, and the industrial networks that connect drives, sensors and controllers.

• Microcontrollers — A microcontroller is a complete computer on one chip, built to control hardware. Learn its architecture — CPU, memory, clock, GPIO, timers, ADC, communication peripherals, interrupts and DMA — and how to budget power for battery devices.
• Embedded Real-Time Control Implementation — Turning control algorithms into reliable firmware. Learn controller hardware (MCU, DSP, FPGA, PLC, industrial PC), timer-driven control loops and ISRs, timing budgets and jitter, quadrature encoder interfaces, ADC sampling synchronised with PWM, fixed-point vs floating-point arithmetic (Q-format, saturation), discretisation, anti-windup in code, RTOS task design, safety states and watchdogs, and testing (MIL/SIL/HIL) — with Python for encoder decoding and a Q15 PI step.
• PLC Programming (IEC 61131-3) — Programmable logic controllers run factories and machines. Learn PLC hardware (CPU, I/O, racks, remote I/O), the scan cycle, the five IEC 61131-3 languages (Ladder, Function Block Diagram, Structured Text, Instruction List, Sequential Function Chart), contacts and coils, seal-in circuits, timers (TON/TOF/TP), counters, edge detection, analog scaling, state machines, and good practice — with a Python model of a PLC scan.
• Industrial Communication: HART, Modbus, Fieldbus & OPC UA — How instruments, controllers and computers talk. Learn the automation pyramid, HART, Modbus RTU/TCP (function codes, registers, CRC), PROFIBUS/PROFINET, Foundation Fieldbus, EtherNet/IP, EtherCAT, IO-Link, wireless (WirelessHART, ISA100), OPC UA and MQTT for IIoT, determinism, topologies and cybersecurity — with Python that builds a real Modbus frame and decodes a float.