15 years ago they took a 190 ton mining truck, complete with the 10' high tires, and converted it to computer control. There was a small LCD disply screen , a menu button, a select button, and scroll up and down. A key switch and turn signal, and brake light switch were all the external no sensor inputs. To turn the parking lamps or heads on, you had to scroll and select, same with the heater, AC, wipers, dump the load, etc. Turn signal and brake lites went through the unit, also. It was set up with a data line for the outputs to remote custom 4 output DCS cards.
Over a million was spent on this over several years. The project manager and head engineer was a friend friend of mine (in fact, best man at my wedding). I told him in front of his boss that I could do that with a plc in six months, including programming, for under S100,000.00.
Boy did he get mad.
Antway, you could take something like this, or a locomotive, or some other big maching, and convert it to PLC control, perhaps adding a fully automatic mode, like for a subway train, complete with automatic door openers.
Or a PLC controlled automatic lane toll plaza, with coin box totalizing.
Almost anything you see, can be a plc project.
Perhaps a satelitte antenna tracking controller for a non sychronus bird.....
