TELECONT develops, produces and implements systems for supervision and control for technological processes
By definition these are “Real Time Systems” and are used for:
- process data acquisition, technological process supervision
- delivering of complete, valid and actual information, to ensure the management and control of the technological processes by operators or dispatchers using graphical user interface for visualization and communication with the system
- creating commands for automatic control of processes and many others
Object requirements
The objects of automation could be classified as:
- Industrial objects
- Remote Control objects
The first group consists of various robotic technology lines in:
- machinery
- automobile industry
- production lines etc.
The second group consists of:
- energetics
- subway
- railway etc.
Both groups have many common characteristics as:
- function in an industrial environment
- the machinery condition is described by heavy information volume
- the information flow is sporadic and varying intensity
- the changes in the information flow could be very dynamical down to a millisecond
- the automation object consist of many subobjects that are located away from with each other and from the Control Station
- the subobjects are technologically connected with each other but the available in a single sub object information is not sufficient for his supervising and control
Therefore the processor information may be concentrated at the Control Center inside the Control Station. The information is processed and analyzed there, and after that the necessary decisions are sent to the subobjects for execution.
The industrial objects differ from remote control objects by the location of the subobjects, which are located on a much smaller distance. Here the communication infrastructure of the automation system is part of the system and is designed and build to easily fit the requirements, which reduces many communication problems.
On the other hand, a remote control object could have subobjects located kilometers away from the Control Station. This imposes the use of external – public or corporate communication networks. The characteristics of the external network is accepted as are and could not be influenced and thus the control system must be adjusted to compensate a sequel of disadvantages like:
- undetermined behavior of the external network
- en-route disturbance or complete interrupting
- package loss
- varying and sometimes insufficient bandwidth etc.
Nevertheless the automation system has to:
- identify a connection interrupt in a fast and clear manner
- in a case of a connection interrupt to update the necessary elements with an “invalid status”
- guarantee for the completeness and validity of the information received etc.
System Requirements
The requirements are derived from and related to the system usage, the physical object, the requirements of the user etc. The basic ones are:
- the automation system has to be designed to work in real time
- the system works in an industrial environment
- the operational staff receives complete, up-to-date and valid information
- the system has to ensure a reaction time of a millisecond or even faster, despite:
– information volume
– quantity and intensity of the current changes
– velocity of the information flow
- the system assigns to the changes the time of there occurres with a precision of 10 millisec – time tag.
- the system has to be built as a multi-hierarchical system that could adapt to the physical structure of the object
- the system communication has to be designed in a way that resembles all dynamical and physical characteristics of the object
- the system has to support all established standard communication environments, technologies and protocols
- the system has to control the communication process. In case of connection interrupt, the system has to save all changes that appeared during the injury and to deliver them to the appropriate Center after the connection
- after a connection loss or receiving invalid information the system has to report about the injury by marking the respective invalid elements with a “broken state”
System Structure
The system consist of:
- Remote Terminal Units – RTU, installed inside the objects
- communication Front_End Servers – FE Servers
- SCADA Servers
- Historical Information Server – HIS
- Human Machine Interface – HMI subsystem
installed inside the Control Center – CC.
The technological equipment and Intelligent Electronic Devices- IED – measure and control devices are placed on the “process level”. The interfaces between the software system and the physical objects is done on that same level. Along with that the information in the RTU comes in parallel, directly through digital I/O’s, or serial through communication channels.
The RTUs and FE Servers are placed on the “object level”. Those system structures form the communication subsystem, which is responsible for the information exchange between the physical objects and the Control Center of the system.
In the monitor direction the process data and in the command direction the data requests and commands are transferred.
Inside telemechanical systems the communication infrastructure uses various types of networks, environments and protocols including public networks.
On the “system level” the SCADA-, HIS- and HMI Servers, as also the Interfaces to foreign systems are located. There the received information from all subobjects/ substations is processed and analyzed and the decision on different actions on the objects are made automatically or by the operator.
Areas
The system could be applied to various industrial fields, e.g.:
- energetics
- railway
- subway
- energy management – SMART GRIDs
- industrial automation
In the case of remote control objects like in energetics, railway etc. the system is built as a telemechanical one (Remote Control System).
On the other cases, when the automation object is a production line, factory hall etc. its design follows the rules of building of Automation Systems for Control of Technological Processes – ASCTP.
