The thesis describes the development of a new virtual environment and tutorial compatible with Beckhoff programmable logic controllers (PLCs). Together they form a learning system that is used as the main teaching tool at the Process Automation course at the Faculty of Computer Science and Informatics (FRI). The novelties compared to the previous virtual environment, the development tools used, and the software required for the operation of the system are presented. The operation of the newly implemented tutorial is described and explained in detail, explaining all capabilities that the virtual environment has to offer. It contains eighteen practical PLC programming challenges. The purpose of the guide is that anyone can now learn the basic concepts of industrial automation by installing the development environment at home, completely free of charge and without the need to purchase hardware.
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