Python Scripting Engine in a SCADA environment

Sammanfattning

With the constant growth of industrial automation, ease of use and flexibility in programming-based data handling and analysis are becoming increasingly important. This thesis explores the integration of Python, a widely used programming language suitable for inexperienced and professional developers, into a .NET environment. This thesis aims to provide a developer solution that allows a user to handle data in a SCADA system using Python and third-party Python libraries for data evaluation and analysis. The primary focus of the thesis is to develop an environment that facilitates such Python integration, assessing both IronPython and Python.NET, two implementation variants targeting the .NET ecosys†tem. By comparing compatibility with .NET environment and Python libraries, as well as general performance, insights are provided highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the two variants. The results of this comparison show that IronPython's tighter integration with .NET enhances performance during interaction with the .NET runtime. However, Python.NET offers greater compatibility with Python libraries and delivers better performance for data handling and analysis tasks that do not involve interaction with the .NET runtime. Both frameworks have limitations with multithreading, which should be addressed in future research.