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新闻与活动  >  成功案例  >  Frequency Hopping Radios
  ProSoft 跳频电台在石油SCADA系统中的应用
ProSoft 跳频电台在石油SCADA系统中的应用 / Frequency Hopping Radios

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ProSoft 跳频电台在石油SCADA系统中的应用

 

Ada Landfill

For 在盖恩斯维尔无论你望向哪里,你始终都只能看到同样的风景,延绵的小山丘,和如同杂草丛生一般的一眼眼的油井和成群如织的牛羊。距离达拉斯只有70英里的库克镇,居民们82%的收入来自畜牧业,但是现在似乎他们和那些在这片土地上开采石油的石油公司之间就环境问题产生了不小的分歧。

   地处盖恩斯维尔的华内特本德油田有104口油井,每天可产750桶原油。这个油田属于格鲁石油管理公司,起初的时候他们在使用需要许可证的150MHz的电台进行油井之间的数据通讯,但是这套系统却总是发生各种各样的问题。他们于是联系了同在德州威瑟夫特的华尔特斯公司的杰夫.怀特,希望他能够帮助他们诊断出问题的所在。通过频谱分析技术,怀特很快确定了这个无线网络受到了来自附近输配电网的干扰,由于带宽过窄,再加之这些外界因素导致了这个系统常常会出现信息过载或者干脆就完全崩溃了。

“原因很简单,伙计们,”怀特告诉油田的工作人员,“因为这些电台根本无法分清楚那些使他们自己的网络信号,那些是周围其他电台的干扰信号。这是多径干扰和同频干扰同时在影响你们的网络。”

怀特准备为油田提出一个升级系统的方案,但是他却又发现了一个难题。因为这个油田地处环境问题敏感的区域,所以它的生产情况按照政府要求不得不被一天24小时的监控着。那么这就要求这个SCADA系统具有报警的功能,并且在必要的条件下可以自动关闭部分网络,甚至整个网络。

 新系统

怀特的新的方案出炉了,这是一个高效的可以整合原有的客户投资同时又解决了过去问题的一个新的网络。因为在这个油田原来的控制系统中有施耐德和罗克韦尔两种品牌的PLC,所以怀特选择了ProSoft的RLX-IFH的跳频串口电台,这样在同一个网络里,施耐德的 Modbus协议和罗克韦尔的DF1协议之间就可以“相互交谈”了。

Ada County Landfill Technology Talks Trash 1

国家仪表的设备也装进了新的SCADA系统,这些设备可以每隔5分钟轮询一次整个网络。

储油罐的液位,管线的压力,以及一套多触发24小时离散报警系统都被安置在这个新的系统中。

另外因为这里到处是树林和河床,所以为了防止泄露氯化物传感器也被用在了这个新的系统当中。

“这个新的无线系统为格鲁石油管理集团剩下了一大笔开支”,ProSoft公司的区域经理麦克拉什说道。“首先我们的电台是2.4GHz的免许可证的产品,他们再也不用每个月去交通讯费了。其次这个无线系统让操作员每天可以从中控室24小时不间断地监控所有的数据情况和现场状态。

要知道以前那套系统让他们的员工就像童子军一样来回奔波,公司要为他们支付不小的开支,可是他们却总是带不回来最精确的数据。”  

ProSoft 的2.4GHz跳频电台被安装上以后,其强大的抗干扰能力让这个网络稳定的工作,再也没有出现过问题。随着本德油田不断地扩建,越来越多的类似的电台倍增加到原有的网络中去了,而且别忘了他还是带有协议翻译功能的呢!

 

 

 

ProSoft Technology 上海(美国普索科技有限公司上海代表处)
 上海市徐汇区虹梅路1905号远中科研楼101室
 电话: +86.21. 5187.7337
 http://cn.prosoft-technology.com/

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Ada County Landfill.pdf 468.94 kB
  Wireless Communication Saves the Day…And the Bottom Line
Wireless Communication Saves the Day…And the Bottom Line / Frequency Hopping Radios

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Wireless Communication Saves the Day…And the Bottom Line

The overhead crane gracefully rides down 240 feet of track with its 8,500 lbs. of cargo.

Iron Manufacturer Goes Wireless

Iron Manufacturer Goes Wireless

The material is placed into one of ten, single-channel induction furnaces and melted to a temperature of 2,750 degrees Fahrenheit to make molten iron. Hot metal carriers then transport the molten iron to an automatic pouring unit. Along the way, an alloy is added that converts the base iron to ductile iron that will be made into finished castings.

The manufacturer has six plants in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Tennessee. At plant No. 4 in Marionette, Wisconsin, 1,500 tons of ductile iron is melted every day to make castings for automotive, agriculture, hydraulics, heavy truck, material handling, power transmission, and off-highway vehicles. With over 3,600 people employed, the combined melt capacity of the six plants is over 9,500 tons of gray and ductile iron each day.

Plant No. 4 prides itself on using state-of-the-art technology in its production processes.

“When we began looking at ways to improve the efficiency and ability of the melt department at Plant 4, we found there were actually three main factors to look at in making decisions on how to proceed,” said the project manager for the wireless automation project:

∙ Record-keeping: To meet ISO and customer requirements, the materials used and chemistries of the iron had to be traceable throughout the entire production process. For the melt department, this meant keeping a record of the incoming charge material from the vendors and alloy used in the process, along with the amounts of each material used in a charge, plus the time the charge was melted, removed from the furnace, and delivered to the automatic pouring units. They found that the inventory records of what was delivered and what was consumed seldom matched.

∙ Accuracy: Many of the parts made by the company are safety-critical components. The chemistries and dimensions must be exact. Following the purpose of their quality management system - “To establish, document and maintain a quality system in accordance with current editions of ANSI/ASQC QS9002 and ISO/TS 16949” - this problem had to be addressed. Even if the scales were in perfect calibration, the information being logged was only as good as the operator’s entries. They needed to eliminate as much paperwork, phone, and two-way radio communications as possible.

∙ Cost reduction: The company rates the production cost in man-hours per ton of iron. When the melt department started looking at how to reduce costs, they had to look at staffing and what each position added to the value of the finished product.

“The first phase of automation was the alloy addition,” the project manager said. “There were two people on each shift manually weighing up the alloy in pails up to a total weight of 200 lbs. They then opened up a hatch on the lid of the ladles used to transport the molten iron. With the heat and flame coming out of the hatch, they would dump the alloy into the ladles. There was a high rate of injury in this job from strains and burns. Recording what was added to each ladle was done on a clipboard that later had to be typed into the system for record-keeping. We were relying on the person to read and record the information into the system accurately.”

The plant was able to reduce seven staff positions by incorporating an automated batching system with the alloy addition weights calculated by a PLC with information provided by the metal lab on a touch screen. The results were real-time accurate weights and record-keeping.

Completing this part of the project cost over $250,000 in material and labor. However, the cost savings in eliminating the six full-time positions and one relief man’s hours provided an annual savings estimated at $320,000.

Next they turned their attention to the charge yard, where the batches to be melted are made. There, two overhead cranes with electromagnets lift material and place it on an automated shaker system. The melt control room operator would use a telephone to communicate the required weight of each of the four items that make up a batch to the preheat control operator. The preheat control operator would relay this information to the two crane operators using a two-way radio and type it into his PC. As the crane operators would lift and place the material on the shakers, they would call down the weights of each item and the preheat operator would type that information into the computer.

“Distractions would cause the preheat operator to miss what weight numbers were called down, and which shaker they were placed in,” the project manager said. “This delayed the process of getting material to the preheat units. The total amount of material needed for each item could not be lifted at one time, so the crane operators would add the amounts in their head or jot it on a paper. If a crane operator forgot what he had said, or wasn’t watching the scale display, they would guess at what was placed in the shakers and invalid information was recorded. In looking over the amounts of material used and compared with the delivery slips, the inventory seldom ever matched. If the resulting chemistry of the iron was wrong because of operator error, there was no way to backtrack the cause of the problem with any accuracy.”

The company knew they needed to look at a system that could get information to and from the overhead cranes automatically and eliminate the human error. Since the cranes are mobile equipment, this presented a unique problem to get a communications system to function properly. They finally decided to place a separate PLC on each of the cranes and chose SIMATIC® S7 units, which were compatible with the Texas Instruments 505 series that was already running in preheat control.

“One of our other plants had in place a PROFIBUS radio system that looked promising, but we found it wouldn’t handle the volume of information we wanted to transmit and receive,” the project manager said. “In speaking with our PLC vendor, Professional Control Corp., they suggested we try using wireless Ethernet radios for PLC-to-PLC communication. There was some concern there may be cross-talk with the wireless bar code readers on our forklifts already in use. Also there was concern the 4.5 million watts of power used in the melt department might somehow interfere with the signals.

“The first step in testing was to hardwire the Texas Instruments and Siemens® Ethernet cards on a bench test to verify the ability to communicate the database information. Our PLC vendor made arrangements for ProSoft Technology, the wireless Ethernet radio manufacturer, to loan us a couple of units for testing. Testing proved out that the wireless Ethernet solution would work. We already were using the Ethernet port on the preheat control PLC to talk with the server, so we simply added another Ethernet card available from C.T.I. to the PLC rack in the preheat control room. This card then connected to the master radio.”

An S7™ PLC with Ethernet, the other I/O cards needed, and the ProSoft radios were installed on each crane. Mounting the touch screens in the cab of each crane on swing arms made it possible for each operator to position them comfortably.

“We were impressed with the ease of setting up the wireless Ethernet radios using the provided software that gave us the signal strength information for the best mounting location,” the project manager said.

The time saved by not having to relay the information verbally allows them to make up to six batches in advance, instead of three previously. This allows for smooth transitions between the different chemistries needed for production. Crane-to-crane communication allows both cranes to see what the other has already added to the batch, speeding up the process and preventing duplication errors. The parts and labor cost for this portion of the upgrade was $22,887, while the total annual savings were $173,380.

With the success of their first wireless Ethernet installation on mobile equipment under their belt, the plant addressed another problem: their hot metal carriers, or HMCs. There are over 950 feet of monorail loops through the facility on which the HMCs travel. The HMC drivers were using two-way radio communication to exchange information with the metal lab, melt control room operator, and each other. The amount of time between receiving the alloy, filling the ladle, delivering the treated iron to the pouring device, and getting the iron poured in the sand mold is critical. Once the iron is treated in the ladle, it has to be poured into the mold within 25 minutes or the chemistry will change and the iron is unusable. It must then be removed from the pouring device. This is called “pigging.” Depending on the chemistry and the job specifications, “fresh” treated iron may have to be added to the pouring device and possibly pigged to flush the vessel. Iron that has been pigged has to run through the whole melt process again, thus costing twice as much for melting and treating the same amount of product poured. The cost of iron at the spout is about 19 cents a pound, so reprocessing an 8,000-pound ladle of iron cost the company an extra $1,520. If the chemistries weren’t within specifications, there was uncertainty as to the cause.

“We identified some of the problems as being missed communications between the metal lab, melt control room operator, and the HMC drivers,” the project manager said. “Other problems were taking the wrong iron weight, getting iron from the wrong furnace number, and delivering iron to the wrong pouring unit.”

Putting PLCs and wireless Ethernet communications on the HMCs wasn’t as easy as in the crane application. One of the major hurdles to overcome was power loss on the power rail distribution. If the rails lose power because of a collector shoe arcing, or for any other reason, the HMCs will switch to diesel power to drive the hydraulics. If the PLC were to shut down, they’d be having the same problems as before.

“We solved this problem by adding another 12-volt battery on the HMC next to the diesel starting battery,” the project manager said. “This battery is kept charged with a ‘float’-type charger powered by the 120 volts on the unit. The 12 volts is then brought to an inverter to convert it back to 120VAC. This system is only used to filter and keep power on the PLC, Ethernet radio and the operator touch panel in the cab. It gives us up to 48 hours of run time so repairs can be made to the electrical distribution system.”

Another problem that had to be overcome was that the HMCs were not always in line-of-sight of the master radio. To overcome this problem, they placed one repeater unit out in the plant. The HMCs communicate with the repeater and then to the master unit. The metal lab, melt control room, the alloy station, and the three metal carriers exchange information in real time.

By adding an incremental encoder to an idler wheel on the drive, they were able to track each carrier throughout the plant with an accuracy of ¼ inch. Mapping out the monorail locations of each furnace pour spout and pouring device receiver location resolved one of their major issues. Now if any HMC stops in the wrong location while taking or delivering iron, an audible alarm sounds on that HMC, and the lab and the melt operator’s screens indicate the alarm is active.

“In tracking the time and frequency of the alarm going off, we found there were 14 times in the first month of recording data that, had it not been for the alarm, there may have been chemistry problems in the final product,” the project manager said. 

“Probably one of the biggest lessons learned from completing this project was the amount of data we thought was good was actually bad,” he continued. “Now whenever there is a mistake involving human error, the problem is addressed by making it error-proof using technology if possible.”

The annual total savings at one plant totaled $600,000.

The company is currently making plans to use ProSoft Technology’s wireless radios instead of underground fiber between their power generator building and their main plant.

Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s Wireless Solutions  here. 

  Wireless Radios Help Reduce Costs and Downtime for Manufacturing Company
Wireless Radios Help Reduce Costs and Downtime for Manufacturing Company / Frequency Hopping Radios

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Wireless Radios Help Reduce Costs and Downtime for Manufacturing Company

 Wireless EtherNet/IP Reduces Costs and Downtime

A legacy slip ring automation system was replaced with a new high-tech solution using ProSoft Technology's radios to communicate via EtherNet/IP™ to CompactLogix™ and FLEX™ I/O, saving the end user thousands in investments and downtime.

 

The need
 A manufacturing company that makes powders from agricultural products began experiencing automation problems in one of its silos. The legacy control system used slip rings and a relay-based system. Because slip rings are subject to constant movement, they need continual maintenance to avoid degradation of the rotating electrical connection caused by normal wear and debris. When a slip ring fails, production stops and critical data packets can sometimes be dropped.

 

The solution
 Original estimates to replace the slip ring contacts were 60,000 to 80,000 euros. So, Rockwell Automation®, together with Stevens Engineering, offered the end user a more viable solution. The new automation architecture incorporates CompactLogix and FLEX I/O PLCs transferring data wirelessly via EtherNet/IP using ProSoft Technology's industrial radios.

 

The benefits
 From the end user's point of view, there are multiple benefits to this new system. First, the cost for the wireless system was much less than the cost to replace the slip rings. Second, the short implementation time necessary for configuring and installing the three radios dramatically reduced factory downtime. And lastly, the silo now operates without any communication issues and no maintenance is necessary to keep this new system operating at peak performance.

 

Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s Industrial Wireless Solutions here.

  Airfields go wireless with ProSoft’s help
Airfields go wireless with ProSoft’s help / Frequency Hopping Radios

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Airfields go wireless with ProSoft’s help

We all do it. Gaze out oblong windows from seats in their upright positions; feel the deceleration of the plane as it floats down the glide slope of the approach; watch our smooth descent toward two retreating columns of light defining the runway ahead. It is part of the experience of flying and much of your personal safety rests on the reliability of the airfield lighting systems that serve as the pilots’ visual aids during take-off and landing.

Airfield_Lighting System

Without reliable lighting systems to facilitate aircraft movements, flights can be delayed or canceled, causing an onerous ripple effect for travelers, businesses, and airlines alike. Worst case, an incursion can occur at an active runway intersection with a potential for fatal results.
 
The Architecture of Airfield Lighting Control Systems
 
Lighting infrastructure on the airfield includes runway and taxiway edge lights, threshold lighting, airfield guidance signs, and apron areas where aircraft are loaded and refueled.
  
Power is distributed to the lighting circuits by underground cables from electrical vaults installed at selected locations on the site. These vaults contain the power distribution equipment for the lighting circuits, and are controlled by an Airfield Lighting Control & Monitoring System (ALCMS).
  
A Canada equipment manufacturer holds over 30 years’ experience designing airfield lighting power and control systems, including those for airports in Houston and Toronto. They’ve seen it all and understand the consequences of failure of the lights airside.
  
“If a network communication problem means a major airport cannot control the approach and runway lighting, the airport may be forced to delay or divert the flights. That’s a big deal,” the company’s president said. “That’s why we use robust industrial-grade products and multiple levels of redundancy in our control system products.”
  
While the company’s power and control system solutions are application-specific, the core hardware and software products employed in their system design remain constant.
  
At the heart of each ALCMS system are Rockwell Automation® ControlLogix® PACs. The lighting circuit status is served to a FactoryTalk® View SCADA operator console located in the Air Traffic Control Tower, providing Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) controllers with a touch-screen interface from which they control the various lighting circuits on the airfield.
  
FactoryTalk View is part of a unified suite of monitoring and control solutions designed to span stand-alone machine-level applications up through supervisory-level HMI applications across a network. This suite offers a common development environment and application reuse such that system engineers can improve productivity while helping clients reduce maintenance costs and improve airfield safety overall.
  
Fiber optic cable is used as the primary communications medium. In many cases, a secondary parallel fiber network is installed as a backup. While reliable, fiber-based communications does have shortcomings, field conditions may be such that:

  • Airside construction can compromise communications and thus operations.
  • Communications duct banks lay under concrete slab runways and taxiways, which are very costly to install and maintain.
  • Redundant fiber networks normally run parallel to the primary line, and thus are subject to common risks, especially when a duct bank is compromised by a negligent back hoe operator.

Independent Wireless Redundancy

Airports are a dynamic entity, with runway and taxiway expansions and surface rehabilitation ongoing. Construction and maintenance airside is a common event, whether for new construction or maintenance purposes. With fiber optic cable runs all around, there exists the risk that the fiber can be damaged during construction and the control system will be knocked offline.
  
As industrial wireless solutions began to emerge, the Canadian system integrator considered their distinct advantages as backup communications to the fiber lines. Cost reduction associated with installation, maintenance, and replacement of fiber was a major driver, but even more valuable was the assurance of increasing uptime by implementing an independent backup communication system.
  
“Uptime and maintenance aspects are a huge consideration. If the system goes down, a maintenance team must be brought in. The costs of this can be significant, particularly if the occurrence is at night or on a weekend. But, if the system is able to automatically switch over to the wireless backup, this cost is avoided,” said the company’s Control Systems Product Manager.
  
The company had been using Wireless Ethernet products successfully since the late 1990s, but began to experience problems as the amount of multicast I/O traffic on their network increased. After some research and consultation with the automation group at Gerrie Electric Distribution, the company discovered that ProSoft Technology’s Industrial Hotspots were better able support their application needs.
  
“This is an exciting company to work with because they are highly innovative, always seeking new and better technology,” said the Automation Product Manager for Gerrie. “When ProSoft Technology released these radios, which were specifically designed and optimized for EtherNet/IP, it made for the right solution and the customer was quick to take advantage of it.”
  
“We went with ProSoft because they are able to handle high multicast traffic, and upon using the radios we also found the configuration tools were much more simplified,” said a representative for the customer. “From our standpoint as a system integrator, we were able to reduce development and installation costs because we could employ the same local electrical contractors that perform the installation of our electrical equipment to mount the data radios.”

Seamless Transition to Backup Communication

In one installation, the system integrator supplied the airfield lighting control system for an airfield providing deployment support for military and humanitarian efforts around the world. The basic system relies on wireless backup for the ALCMS functions. In a later system expansion, eight new Rockwell Automation POINT I/O™ drops were added to the wireless network, providing real-time control and monitoring of high mast apron lighting around the airfield. The cost to install seven wireless nodes to the network came in at less than half of the cost of a conventional hardwired configuration.
  
After installation, the unexpected did happen. A contractor dug through a major telecommunications duct bank containing the main fiber optic communication cables for the airfield lighting. Communications and airport operations continued flawlessly on the wireless radio network for the next week while new cables were procured and installed.

Reaching Remote Sites

In a majority of airside projects, site equipment is deployed over a large physical area. Locations may involve a few I/O points and remote operator consoles which are potentially distributed over distances up to five miles. In these situations, it’s often not economical to run fiber, and wireless becomes the primary line of communication.
  
In fact, the Canadian system integrator has standardized on wireless as the primary network for the more distributed applications on the airfield, including control from Central De-icing Facilities. De-icing is essential to safe aircraft operation in winter. An anti-freezing agent called glycol is used for this process. Because of its toxicity, environmental regulations now require modern airports to designate an area for the de-icing process, where glycol used to spray the planes is collected into reservoirs, cleaned and discharged. These de-icing facilities are generally remote from the main terminals, so independent lighting systems are used to guide planes into the appropriate bays for spraying.

Mobile Connectivity, Maintenance, and Transferability

To take things one step further, one Canadian airport’s Central De-icing Facility lighting is controlled by a mobile laptop PC using a high-speed wireless EtherNet/IP communications module.
  
The lighting infrastructure of de-icing pads resembles a mini airport, where an individual called the Iceman controls the movement of aircraft within the de-icing area. The Iceman’s mobility is quite important as he moves about the facility and guides aircraft in and out under the most severe winter conditions.
  
Wireless mobile units are becoming common on the airfield, not just for de-icing but for mobile maintenance units, like one designed for an Arizona airport. The airport uses ProSoft Technology’s IP66 weatherproof radios to communicate from the maintenance vehicles to the main control system locations including the control tower and two electrical vaults.
  
If a runway is closed for maintenance, airport electricians can roam the airfield performing mandatory light checks while manually controlling each circuit from their mobile wireless computer. In the past, they would have had to contact the tower to switch circuits on/off for them, a tedious and time-consuming procedure at best.

Challenges

Wireless communications has proven to be very successful, but not without its challenges.
  
“When you run fiber, you dig a trench and put it in the ground,” the Canadian system integrator’s representative said. “You know it’s there. With wireless the biggest difficulty is pinpointing a point of interference if, for example, the airline implements an overlapping unrelated wireless network in the terminal. We can’t control who else is in the spectrum tomorrow.”
  
All in all, he noted, the benefits outweigh the costs for the system integrator and its customers.
  
“We’ve had a very positive experience,” he said. “ProSoft is responsive when issues arise during installation. The support guys are always very helpful, good to work with, and we can’t see building our systems any other way today.”

 

Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s wireless solutions here

  Three Times Faster
Three Times Faster / Frequency Hopping Radios

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Three Times Faster

three_times_faster

In the massive warehouse, a forklift zips down the box-laden aisle. The driver stops and pulls a box from a pallet to the forklift.

The instant the driver is back behind the wheel, the lift is off again. This is a scene that is re-enacted millions of times a day in warehouses around the world.
  
Order fulfillment is probably the most labor-intensive function in any warehouse or distribution center. So, in order to increase efficiency and reduce these labor-intensive costs, it is only natural that companies look for ways to automate this process. A manufacturer of installation equipment, wiring devices, and telecommunication products in Norway wanted to do just that … improve their processes through automation.

The Need

The end user contacted Goodtech Products, the Norwegian distributor for ProSoft Technology. Some of the main objectives the end user needed were to have the ordering system "smart enough" to be able to define, and adjust in real time, the best route for picking the goods from the warehouse, as well as to "know" when restocking was needed. Avoiding the need for printing-out the pick-lists (one per order) of goods to be taken from the warehouse was also essential. The final objective was to have workers receive information digitally, at the right time and in the right sequence, on their way between the shelves.
  
Key to this improvement was the mobility of handheld devices for each operator, and key to this mobility was the reliability and security of the wireless network. For that, Goodtech recommended ProSoft Technology’s Industrial High-Speed Ethernet Hotspot radios. 

The end user’s warehouse contains a lot of steel and concrete, and long distances.
  
"The signals from a traditional wireless network, like the ones commonly found in Norwegian homes, do not work here," says an Account Manager at Goodtech Products. "And if the signals do not do their job, the customers do not receive their goods – and the end user loses money. We need wireless signals that reach the site from a reliable wireless network – regardless of the working conditions."

 

The Solution

Twenty industrial routers were installed from the ceiling beams in the production hall and warehouse. They transmit the wireless signals, regardless of any obstacles, and can tolerate intensive use for long periods of time.
  
The work of moving goods from the shelf to the forklift is now much easier. Workers no longer need to manually track which goods they have to retrieve, and where and when they have to do it, because they receive real-time instructions wirelessly via their hand-held PDA.
  
A computer system calculates the most efficient sequence in which workers need to take goods off the shelves. Stacks of paper containing pick-lists have been replaced by simple messages. These messages are updated and refreshed in real-time. The warehouse workers are now able to pick three times more goods during the day than they did before the new wireless system was introduced.
  
"It's faster. It's easier. And I find it more motivational to work than before," one of the workers said. 
  
"We are very pleased with this system," said the end user’s Systems Consultant. "The routers are reliable and the system works. We save time and money."

Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s Wireless Solutions here.

  Not Your Typical Water Department
Not Your Typical Water Department / Frequency Hopping Radios

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Not Your Typical Water Department

In an Illinois city, the water department’s 28 employees were scrambling to meet the needs of their consumers. The treatment division’s responsibilities included the operation and maintenance of fourteen wells, a lime softening treatment plant, three booster pumping stations, four elevated tanks, and one ground storage reservoir. The distribution division was charged with operating and maintaining 170 miles of water mains, reading and maintaining more than 13,000 services, and the installation and repair of water mains, valves and hydrants.

Normal Water Tank

All of this activity was being accomplished with an outdated system containing RTUs that performed only minimal SCADA and licensed-frequency radios that sent data at a mere 300 bits per second. Overall, the system was complicated to understand, expensive to service and difficult to repair.

The water department turned to SCADAware, a local system integration firm, and expressed their desire for a new system, built from the ground up. In an effort to control costs, and allow the city to create, install, maintain, and repair its new system with minimal outside help, SCADAware’s president recommended a PC-driven, license-free, frequency hopping spread spectrum solution.

The water department’s new system now uses a primary and secondary server within its water treatment plant for HMI and PC-based control. The computers collect and monitor data from all of the city’s wells, tanks, and lift stations via a ProSoft Technology wireless serial network. Programmable Field Couplers allow water treatment personnel to make adjustments and activate controls. A SIXNET Ethernet-to-Serial is used to convert the incoming serial data to Ethernet, allowing the data to be accessed on the plant’s LAN.

“The monitoring of wells and tanks using the wireless network cut down on drive time and time away from the department,” said ProSoft’s Wireless Manager. “The sophisticated software alerts water department employees of problems, reducing response times.”

Although justifying upgrades of this nature can be very challenging for municipal departments, the team at the water department felt that this upgrade would have an immediate, positive economic impact on performance and efficiency. They were right.

“The easily administered SCADA system and the wireless network allowed the city to have the flexibility to upgrade and change their system as the need arises,” said a ProSoft Wireless Engineer. “Future expansion has now become more affordable for the water department. The present solution has also become much more efficient and less burdensome to maintain.”

 

For more information about ProSoft Technology’s Wireless Solutions, click here.

  Improving communications on a Texas oil field
Improving communications on a Texas oil field / Frequency Hopping Radios

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Improving communications on a Texas oil field

No matter which direction you look in Gainesville, Texas, you see the same thing: rolling hills, grassy prairie dotted with cattle, and oil wells. The city is located in Cooke County, just 70 miles north of Dallas, where 82 percent of the county’s income comes from cattle. This makes it an environmentally sensitive area for oil companies.

Texas Radios Pipe

A while back, an oil field there began experiencing interference in its 150 MHz licensed-frequency radio network. The end user contacted Jeff Walters of Automation Alternatives in Weatherford, Texas, to see if he could diagnose the problem. Using a spectrum analyzer, Walters quickly found that the radios were experiencing elevated noise zones from power-grid interference, which caused the system to overload and shut down spontaneously.

“The radios were simply unable to differentiate between their own network traffic and the interfering radio signals around it,” Walters said.

There were other concerns facing Walters in his search for an upgraded system. Since the field was located in an environmentally sensitive area, it needed to be monitored 24 hours a day. Should there be an alarm condition, the SCADA system needed the capability to automatically shut down all or parts of the field.

Walters’ solution incorporated an interesting and effective blend of technology. Both Schneider Electric® and Rockwell Automation® PLCs receive analog and discrete data from the field. The data is then transmitted wirelessly using 22 ProSoft Technology serial radios. Since the radio network is inherently able to accommodate multiple protocols simultaneously, transmitting both Modbus and DF1 protocols presents no problem.

National Instruments Lookout was chosen as the SCADA system, allowing facilities to be polled every five minutes. Tank levels, line pressures, LACT readings, and a variety of discrete alarms trigger call-outs 24 hours a day. Because much of the oil field has trees and deep creek beds, chloride sensors are also monitored for possible spills.

“The new wireless system has eliminated a number of expenses for the end user,” said the ProSoft Regional Sales Manager who worked on the application. “Our radios are 2.4 GHz license-free, which saves the expense associated with licensed radios. The wireless system also allows an operator to monitor the field 24 hours a day from a central location, saving on employee overtime.”

ProSoft Technology’s 2.4 GHz radios experience no interference or downtime, making this wireless solution very reliable. As the oil field’s radio network grows, more radios can easily be added to the network and can continue to accommodate multiple protocols. 

Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s Wireless Solutions here. 

 

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