Portable Engineering Station Terminal (PEST), with the prototype:
A portable Engineering Station is meant to be a Portable Device (A Smart Phone for instance) that perform the functionality of a traditional engineering station including programming using the IEC-61131-3 [6] compatible PLC programs, hardware and communication configuration, downloading and even testing, with the possibility to add and configure HMI’s. Along with those traditional functions a PEST is hooked up with the functionalities that will allow it to communicate with the cloud through thin clients (or any vendor preferred connection method) and the Engineering management system stated later in this paper. Conceptually, PEST is meant to support the following functionalities: