Plcs ride monitoring

I have a ride with 20 cars. i would like to monitor these's cars as they go round the ride. Where do i get a free program that will enable me to map out the ride and monitor the PLC's on each car?

I want to be able to see where each car is on the ride and get each plc to relay the current sate of each car?? I need help!!!

That is way to expensive,
you will need a very robust communication and apart from that a localisersystem.
Have a look at the footballrobot system the university eindhoven build (it works total atonomous )
Yes they use a PLC (beckhoff)

Boc,

First, to allow us to help you, kindly answer a few questions:

1. To monitor the PLC's on each car, then what brand and model of PLC does each car have?
2. What type of communications protocol does each PLC have available?
3. To relay the current sate of each car, first what are the possible "current states" for each car? How many states can each car have, and what does each state mean?

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS: You will probably need a small Master PLC to trach the progress of each car using some Bit-Shift Registers. You will probably need a Bit-Shift Register for each possible Current State, and you will need a bit register length equal to the maximum number of car locations to be tracked.

Do you really need a PLC on each car ? Then you would need wireless communication also. Can you put an RFID tag on each car, and position RFID readers at various positions around the track ? If you position 2 proxi sensors at each RFID you can use the time difference to calculate the speed. Other than which check point each car passes and how fast it is moving, what else do you need to monitor ?

I am not sure of the OP's aplication but in most rides with individual cars there is a small plc for each car that comm's back to a primary plc for control of the entire ride.

Is this a "ride" as in a merry-go-round thing? Or a "ride" like a karting track?

i.e. are the cars free to roam or are they in a fixed position relative to each other?