Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition

MeshNetics, a leading ZigBee technology provider, demonstrated its SensiLink integration platform at ZigBee Open House in San Jose, California, on June 15, 2006. The SensiLink integration platform serves as a gateway between wireless sensor networks (WSN) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), Human Machine Interfaces (HMI), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), IP-based and custom applications.

The SensiLink software suite features OPC, Web Services and Java API interfaces to facilitate data integration. OPC Server is a crucial component of SensiLink middleware architecture that enables interconnectivity with a wide range of OPC compatible industrial automation applications. OPC (Open Connectivity) technology is the non-proprietary automation interconnectivity standard. Frequently compared to Microsoft Windows’ printer drivers, the OPC Specification defines a set of standard interfaces. The new Unified Architecture (UA) holds promise of unifying all of the existing OPC technology. The OPC UA is no longer based on Microsoft COM/DCOM, but on open, internet-based communication standards, such as TCP/IP, HTTP, SOAP, and XML. MeshNetics plans to implement OPC UA in its SensiLink integration platform which should make it significantly more scalable.

SensiLink also includes Smart Engine, a critical feature that provides distributed intelligence for preliminary node computations. For example, an operator can monitor office comfort level that is a combination of certain temperature, humidity and illumination. With SensiLink’s Smart Engine, the measurements of these parameters are analyzed on the nodes, and an alert is only generated when they exceed the comfort level. Smart Engine node computations like these significantly minimize data traffic within the WSN while maximizing battery life.

Source and more information: usprwire

SR Telecom(TM) Inc., the leading provider of licensed OFDM solutions, today announced it has been awarded a new contract valued at CDN $3.0 million for its SR500s point-to- multipoint fixed wireless access system from Iberinco, a leading engineering firm based in Spain.

Iberinco selected the SR500s for its versatility in transporting voice and data signals at varying speeds and formats. The SR Telecom SR500s has been the core solution for this multi-regional project that has seen the deployment of networks throughout the Algiers and Oran regions of Algeria. It will now be deployed throughout the Constantine region to enable end users to continuously monitor the performance and status of their electrical grid and to maintain communications with remotely located staff. Deliveries are expected to begin in Q3 2006.

“We are very proud of our position as supplier-of-choice for SCADA applications,” said William Aziz, President and CEO of SR Telecom. “The oil, gas and electrical distribution markets require a mature, robust and reliable product solution and SR Telecom has been the supplier of choice for this market segment for over 20 years. The feature set of our equipment, along with our unique ability to seamlessly integrate it within mission critical applications like this are the main reasons behind our continued success in these sectors.”

Source and more information: yahoo

Citect, one of the world’s largest, realtime intelligence and industrial automation software companies along with its partner, SSE Cape Town, is to deploy CitectScada at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality in the Eastern Cape region. The project covers both the treatment works and remote monitoring of pump stations.

By standardising on the same communications, telemetry and scada platform, the municipality is able to seamlessly integrate the treatment and raw sewage pumping process to reduce operating and training expenses. The fully redundant CitectScada system operates on two servers to provide operational and statistical information from a central control room. The system’s display clients in various locations offer full functionality and communicate over a wireless network to the servers in the control room. The data gathered from the pump trip alarms, sump levels and intrusion alarms provide valuable data for future growth planning.

“System architecture is one of Citect’s outstanding features. CitectScada’s scalability makes it easier to implement future plant upgrades and expansions without having to modify the existing hardware or software,” says Rodney Myburg, manager Wastewater Conveyance, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality.

The plant benefits from the scada’s superior scalability and its unique visualisation tool, the Process Analyst. The Process Analyst combines trend and alarm displays on a single integrated screen. Operators can easily determine the cause of process disturbances and take quicker action.

“Citect is very pleased to be working with our partner, SSE Cape Town, to provide a fully redundant scada system for the largest telemetry project in the Eastern Cape in many years. We are also confident the scalability and open architecture will serve its present needs as well as future growth,” comments Wilhelm Swart, South African managing director, Citect Corporation.

Source and more info: instrumentation

The outing of a simple crash bug has caused public soul-searching in an industry that has historically been closed-mouthed about its vulnerabilities.

The flaw, in a particular vendor’s implementation of the Inter-Control Centre Communications Protocol (ICCP), could have allowed an attacker the ability to crash a server.

Yet, unlike corporate servers that handle groupware applications or websites, the vulnerable server software - from process-control application maker LiveData - monitors and controls real-time devices in electric power utilities and healthcare settings. The best known types of devices are supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) devices and distributed control system (DCS) devices.

A crash becomes a more serious event in those applications, said Dale Peterson, CEO of Digital Bond, the infrastructure security firm that found the flaw.

“These are what you would consider, in the IT world, critical enterprise applications. But the companies don’t act like these are critical enterprise applications.”

Source and more info: theregister

National Instruments has introduced a data-acquisition system based on the connectivity of USB. The basic Compact DAQ hardware unit’s eight-slot chassis accepts a range of hot-swappable, autodetected instrumentation modules. Although the unit does not replace the company’s PCI-based instrumentation, NI says that, by exploiting the speed and convenience of USB 2.0, it can address the performance needs of a large fraction of the data-acquisition market.

Compact DAQ, the company says, operates equally well as a small-scale to midscale, quickly configured field-data-collection system, or as a small-scale ATE (automatic-test-equipment) platform. Modules provide signal conditioning for variables such as voltage, temperature, strain, sound level, and vibration. The system employs four dedicated USB-signal streams to provide the bandwidth to support as many as 256 measurement channels. You can combine low- and high-speed modules in the same configuration. According to NI, the diversity of currently available, capable ADC chips permits the company to build a variety of digitally isolated modules using ADCs. Compact DAQ operates from ac supplies or from 11 to 30V dc.

Source and more information: edn

The Promolog wireless process and temperature data acquisition system is an innovative, modular, monitoring system giving the user freedom from cables and connectors. Its flexibility allows the user to easily add new sensors and move equipment. The Promolog system is aimed towards applications such as, cold storage, laboratories, furnaces, ovens etc.

A simple Promolog System comprises.

* Trend analysis software, which as standard can accommodate unlimited input sensors.

* A RTR970 data receiver, which is connected to the PC via serial or USB port.

* IP67 field mounted temperature or signal transmitters which can transmit data up to 300 metres, with an accuracy of up to 0.2% of scale and a battery life of up to 5 years.

The measurement and transmit time is variable down to 1 minute intervals.

The RTR970 receiver accepts the wireless data and delivers it to the PC.

If the PC is switched off or the connection is lost, the RTR970PRO receiver can store up to 150,000 samples which would be automatically uploaded to the PC on power up or reconnection.

Source and more information: processingtalk

Continuing to upgrade its range of industry-leading solutions for applications in high-frequency sonar, test and measurement and radar, ICS Sensor Processing, part of Radstone Embedded Computing, has announced the ICS-645B 32-channel high-speed data acquisition card.

Providing a new level of price/performance for the company’s ICS-645 family, the ICS-645B takes full advantage of the higher throughput capabilities of PCI 2.2 with its 64-bit, 66 MHz interface, delivering four times the PCI bandwidth capacity, while the FPDP II interface delivers two and a half times (400 MBytes/second) the throughput of previous family members.

“The ICS-645 product line has led the market for high-speed acoustic ADC boards since it was introduced,” said Scott Hames, director of product management, ICS. “The announcement of the ICS-645B brings leading-edge performance to acoustic A/D applications while remaining highly affordable. We believe our customers will agree that the ICS-645B represents outstanding value for money.”

With 32 single-ended input channels, simultaneously sampled (even in multi-card systems) by high-speed oversampling ADCs (Analog Devices AD9260) at sample rates up to 20 MSPS (million samples per second) and a programmable clock source, the ICS-645B has been optimized to provide effective, streamlined functionality in a single full length PCI card.

Source and more information: electropages

With recent emphasis on demand side management, cost smart companies are seizing the opportunity to create value via the measurement and monitoring of energy consumption. Pairing an Adroit supervisory control and data acquisition (scada) system and a PowerSmart energy management package from automation consultants, NC Automation Engineering, is proving to be an effective solution for plants that want to take advantage of Eskom’s energy incentives plans.

While most meter manufacturers offer software which is able to retrieve data from their meters, these packages typically do not provide for the easy integration of the data into production monitoring and control systems or billing reporting systems leading to the creation of ‘islands of information’ rather than a comprehensive solution.

“Energy data that is cleverly combined with production data in the Adroit system allows for the possibilities of truly understanding how a company’s daily operation can be made more energy and cost efficient. Without measurement and analysis there is no control. Once this step is accomplished a strategy can be developed to act on this information either automatically or via human interaction to reduce costs,” says Jason Wright, director of NC Automation.

Source and more info: instrumentation

Citect, one of the world’s largest, real-time intelligence and industrial automation software companies, today announced the recruitment initiative to grow its SCADA and facilities business.

“The growth in our SCADA and facilities markets means that we need more systems integrators to support our business operations throughout Europe, especially the UK, Germany and France” said Martin Filz, Managing Director for Citect in Europe. “We offer an excellent CIP package to companies who are looking to increase their business opportunities.”

“Integrators participating in the Citect program can benefit from working with a global company that continually develops their products and offers strong marketing support. In addition, partners have access to Citect’s world-class support and educational services enabling them to reduce risk and engineering effort during the development of new HMI/SCADA projects. As evidence of this, our existing CIPs are responsible for implementing the software that is currently running some of the largest Microsoft Windows-based SCADA systems worldwide.”

Citect offers Integrators a comprehensive package that includes:
• Access to SCP-certified Global Support Center during local business hours
• Demonstration and testing license keys for CitectSCADA or Nexa
• Software product upgrades as soon as they are released
• Dedicated technical seminars
• Participation in Citect software beta programs
• Gold Support for new development, demonstration, and testing.

Source and more info: pandct

GE Fanuc HMI/scada solutions, through the use of discovery and automated configuration, offer added value and easier setup on third party hardware than HMI/scada solutions from the vendors themselves. The Proficy HMI/scada discovery and auto-assembly component (DAC) is specially designed to identify field data and automatically configure both drivers and scada databases to use the information.

The new component - which is installed as standard to GE Fanuc Automation HMI/scada - iFIX 4.0 and in the future will include Cimplicity - delivers an easy to use interface for discovering tags from field-based devices like PLCs. This then allows the user to configure HMI/scada drivers to acquire data from those tags, and configure HMI/scada databases to use the data for alarming, logging and so on.

The DAC tool consists of three components:
* Discovery agents are specially developed for various data sources.
* Driver configurators offer the ability to configure a driver to acquire data from the field.
* A Database Configurator will configure the HMI/scada database to use the data from the driver.

Source and more info: instrumentation