PLCs versus microcontrollers

With recent advancements in the development of low-cost opensource hardware, the DIY or maker community has advanced considerably in an attempt to bridge the OT/IT gap. Tech enthusiasts can now create astounding projects revolving around control systems and sense environment variables; understand, store, and visualize them; and then actuate responses.

The difference, of course, is IoT in the mix: the idea of going beyond the traditional and bringing data to the cloud where it can be examined at a much faster and larger scale. This is similar to how a PLC performs a control operation in a production facility without the cloud. At the same time, machine learning components are needed to bring better insight into the operation. It is logical with this approach to see whether microcontrollers, with their more powerful computational ability, can be substituted. For example, can we exchange a PLC with a general-purpose microcomputer, such as a Raspberry Pi...