This project was fairly methodical to implement on the PLC given the skill base built over the course so far. This makes a lot of sense given that PLCs are purpose built for industrial automation and control with their inbuilt functions geared accordingly.
Access to resources, primarily the PLCs themselves, was the biggest hindrance to the project timeline.
It was somewhat challenging being a large group of busy people with a relatively short time frame before delivery.
Some areas of understanding how to really implement the process as a real simulation of a system were quite complex.
Was fairly large learning curve on figuring out how to configure MPI and how to connect the HMI.
During final compilation of the program the Murdoch Student Servers crashed hindering our finish time for the project putting it back to the last day.
Further Development
Active fail-over to another controller PLC which will assume control if certain condition(s) are met.
A higher order filter could be used to reject more of the noise on the process variable (PV).
A discrete beta filter or moving average could also be considered to better filter the PV noise.
A higher order process could be implemented with relative ease given the implementation of 5 value shift registers.
Better HMI interface for more user friendly interaction.
Sending data through Siemens transfer functions like Send/Receive.