An overhead monorail system transports car body carriers around a loop that travels through the 100-meter-long paint-shop building.

At the paint-shop loading station at one end of the process line, car bodies are loaded onto these mobile carriers, lifted eight meters off the floor, and attached to an overhead monorail system. The carriers run above a process line with 14 sequential stations. At each station, the carriers stop to allow two on-board hoists to lower the car bodies into a chemical immersion bath. When the process is completed at one station, the hoists lift the car body and the carrier moves along the monorail to the next station in the chain, as soon as it's empty. After the last process station, the car bodies are unloaded from the carriers at the other side of the building, 120 meters from where they began.

The Problem – Obsolete Mobile Connectivity

Each mobile overhead carrier contains an on-board controller to operate the on-board hoists. A single, stationary master controller located near the loading station manages the carrier controllers. The master issues commands via a legacy serial protocol through a conductor rail system that connects it to the carrier controllers.
  
The protocol is slower than newer industrial protocols and is difficult to transmit wirelessly. The facility management recognized that to increase communication speed and bandwidth they would need to use a new protocol. And, the original network design did not require or include peer-to-peer communication between carrier controllers. They determined that adding peer-to-peer communication capability could also help increase production.

The sliding-contact conductor rail system that carried messages came with its own set of problems. The sliding-contact system required significant maintenance to operate at peak efficiency. But even at peak efficiency, when network bandwidth utilization approached maximum capacity, high transmission error rates plagued this hardware-based rubbing connector system. Low capacity and high error rates created another problem. Even though the paint-shop process line had 14 stations, the conductor rail system had enough bandwidth for data from only 13 carriers at a time, which was restricting paint-shop throughput.

The Goal – Increase Production Capacity with Minimal Modifications

Plant engineers wanted to retain the advantages of having mobile, on-board controllers for each carrier. They wanted to eliminate the communication bottleneck imposed by the older serial protocol. They wanted to eliminate the maintenance headaches and bandwidth limitations of the conductor rail network. They wanted to be able to use all 14 stations simultaneously, and add four to six new carriers to cope with increased production demands. So, they began rethinking their network strategy.

The Solution – Marrying Old and New Technologies

Working closely with an engineering service and local distributor, the company elected to migrate to the faster, more robust Ethernet communication network in order to increase their bandwidth capabilities. But, the processors mounted in the mobile carrier cabinets had no Ethernet ports. The manufacturer did not want to replace all the mobile PLCs with Ethernet-capable processors, so they installed a serial-to-Ethernet gateway in each controller cabinet. This enabled the stationary master processor to receive process data from the mobile processors via Ethernet. The existing legacy master PLC was replaced with a newer version, giving the master controller sufficient Ethernet connectivity bandwidth to handle the large volume of data from the mobile controllers.
  
The sliding contact network system was not well-suited for Ethernet communication and too unreliable and costly to maintain. Eliminating the outdated sliding contact system and replacing it with a modern wireless system seemed like an obvious and necessary choice. The mobile carriers and the stationary master controller could then communicate via Ethernet through a high-speed, high-volume wireless network solution. But wireless networks can have their own set of limitations. Radio waves reflect off metal objects and bounce in all directions, creating a potential problem known as radio multipath interference.
  
Engineers were doubtful wireless would be reliable for heavy industry, in an environment surrounded by moving metal. The paint shop has metal walls and a metal roof. The carriers are massive steel objects, as are the car bodies they carry. These constantly moving metal masses result in an ever-changing radio frequency environment, increasing opportunities for radio interference to interrupt or corrupt data flow. But ProSoft’s industrial radios use highly effective filtering algorithms and allow emitted power adjustment. Both of these features help overcome multipath interference problems. Plus, ProSoft Technology's expert advice regarding proper antenna selection and placement was a major factor contributing to the application's overall success.
  
“We saved at least 2-3 days of engineering work while designing the network,” remembers Mike Dean, the system integrator from DACs. “And of course, we saved on installation time, having less hardware to handle, manipulate, and install in the field. In fact, installation and validation of the network were very quick. When adopting a new technology, the learning curve typically runs through one or two projects. But, with [the radios] and with support from ProSoft Technology, our learning process was very short.”

The Results - DRAMATIC

Production capacity increased more than 53 percent.
  
The wireless radios provided all the speed and bandwidth engineers needed to achieve their design goals. Wireless networking brought the transmission speed and reliability that were missing with the old conductor-rail, sliding-contact system. The wireless solution was easy to implement and much easier to maintain, requiring less downtime. And the number of carriers that could simultaneously be in use in the paint-shop loop increased from 13 with the old network to 20 with the new network.

Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s wireless solutions here. 

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.

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

我们习惯只在麻烦发生的时候才去思考它的原因，但是废水处理对我们来说，又是一个很基础的公共服务：它对于保持我们生存环境的卫生和健康，对于保证我们的水源清洁是至关重要的。在这个问题的背后，废水处理过程还是一个融合微生物学，化学以及机械工程学的复杂工艺流程，并且又是包含各类高精尖仪表和自动化技术的现代化产业。
 
工业废水处理

Lapuan Jätevesi Oy是坐落于芬兰西部的一坐中央废水处理工厂，它负责接收和处理家庭废水和来自于Atria, Lapuan Nahka, Kation 和Metso 电厂排放的工业废水。废水厂运行负责人 Vesa Hahtokari 说，“ 60% 在此处理的水为工业废水，去处理那些包含动物粪便的工业污水，尤其的费力。”Vesa Hahtokari 玩笑道，“相比于工业废水，我不得不说那些生活污水简直干净到了可以直接饮用的地步。”这也侧面说明了谨慎的选择这个污水厂的自动控制系统是多么的重要。

TLapuan Jätevesi Oy 废水厂现在处理来自三个地方的废水，Lapua, Nurmo 以及 Kuortane。此外这套控制系统还负责从 Nurmo 和 Kuortane 到 Lapua 的市政废水管网的监控维护以及地处 Lapua 市的中央废水处理厂间的控制。所以要是对整个的自动化系统进行更新，确实不是一件简单的工作。

精确的控制过程

在废水处理的初期阶段，流入的污水中的大块杂质被去除，并且水中的含氧量被提高足以保证微生物的生长（微生物通过吞食废水中的杂质以净化废水）。在这个处理阶段，废水中的微生物可以得到非常舒适的生长环境，例如温度、氧气和营养。
在下一个阶段里主要二次化学沉积，在这个阶段中，铝基化学药品被加入到第一阶段生化处理后的废水中，用以加速水中有机物质和其他物质的降解。在最后的阶段，残留的污泥被脱水。从污泥中脱离的水被送到整个处理过程的第一阶段重新处理，污泥被送往 Lakeuden Etappi 沼气工厂。 

高科技的控制系统

这家中央污水处理厂的控制系统是在1992年安装的，目前这套控制系统已经非常的陈旧，工厂希望更新后的系统应该具有如下特征：

• 易于安装调试和维护保养
• 高度的灵活性以快速适应各种变化
• 对整体解决方案进行改进
• 尽可能的不改变目前应用软件和操作流程

整个新的系统是2008 年施耐德电气和当地的集成商 Seinäjoen Teollisuussähkö Ky合作开发的。“这套旧的控制系统已经尽到了它的职责，过去16年的每一天，我们都在使用它。”Hahtokari 解释到。这套原始的控制系统使用了6套TSX7系列工业控制器， 77/2的监控软件和 MAPWAY 通讯协议。

在新的解决方案中，将使用 Modicon 的 Premium 系列控制器作为控制系统，Pro v7.6作为监控软件，并且通过 ProSoft Technology 的9台 RadioLinx 系列工业以太网电台，使用了无线的 Modbus TCP/IP 通讯协议进行通讯。大约2000个过程工艺参数通过无线网络传输，并且该网络也用于远程的程序上下载和远程维护。

为何使用无线？

总共7个控制点必须被整合到一个紧密连接的网络。废水处理厂有两个控制室，6台 Modicon Premium 控制器被安装于不同的房间内。“我们把第二台电脑放在这栋更高的建筑里，确保我们的鞋永远不会被弄湿。”  Hahtokari muses 自言自语道。

这是因为工厂被修建在一个容易发生水灾的地方（它的电气中心在去年洪灾后，就不得不重新修整）。当然，即使电脑停止工作，工厂的各项流程也是可以继续运做的。从用户的观点考虑，选择无线网络的第一个优点是它的安装成本和时间：不需要为新的系统通讯再挖电缆沟，也不需要从新清理现有的电缆线路。 

 
正确的选择

从集成商的角度考虑，“ RadioLinx 是安装调试过程中的最简单部分。我们的操作没有任何问题，这些电台非常容易配置而且 ProSoft Technology 产品配套提供的说明资料讲解的非常清楚。施耐德在他们的办公室里做了一些测试工作，并且告诉我们如何实现现场的无线通讯。”
 
从施耐德电气的观点考虑，无线网络的工程量被减到了最低。“当我们开始项目的时候，我们在现场没有任何无线技术的专家。”施耐德电气芬兰的大客户经理 Jouni Aarnu 解释道。

“我们与 ProSoft Technology 技术支持工程师交谈，并且提供他们基本的工程要求和网络规划。他们针对这个典型的应用进行考虑而且提供给我们推荐的产品清单和每台电台使用的附件装置：转换电缆、天线、避雷器等。

他们同时提供给我们必要的用于产品调试和现场使用的技术说明和建议。在无线电台的安装过程中，只有一个关于天线极性的小问题，但是我们也非常快速的通过与 ProSoft Technology 的技术工程师联系并且解决了它。” Aarnu concludes 说，“在 ProSoft 的专业软件的帮助下，系统的无线网络配置对我们和我们的集成商来说变成了一件很容易的工作。我们从使用 ProSoft Technology 电台的第一个项目中了解到这一点。”

 长期的可获利投资

“这些新的控制器大部分被定义成了与以前的控制系统相同的使用方式”。Hahtokari 说道:“有些旧的控制器保持不变，一些被加入一些功能或是更改了一些指令。”自从1992年旧的系统开始运行后，这家污水处理厂又添加了一台新的污泥烘干分离机和并且改进了化学处理工艺。从而，这些自动控制系统也需要相应的更新。

“没有永远保持不变的控制系统。功能总是会有一些增加或是改变。尤其在水处理这个行业，随着时间的推移各种规则和标准总在不断地更新。”施耐德电气的销售经理 Jukka Kiiltomäki 说。Kiiltomäki 正是负责1992年的 Lapuan Jätevesi Oy 的初始自动控制项目，当时也是和 Seinäjoen Teollisuussähkö 进行合作的项目。“关于新控制系统的执行，我们没有任何的问题，用户人机界面上的图表几乎保持于原来完全一致，因此我们熟悉各种操作界面并且不需要提供额外的培训。”  Hahtokari 总结道。

目前使用的报文程序不同于 SCADA 系统的程序，但它也是在相同的网络下，直接从Modicon Premium 控制器读取数据。“把报文整合到 SCADA 软件下是可能的，但是由于数据库太大，我们希望把报文保留为独立的程序并且同时保存在一台独立的电脑中。与更新后的自动控制项目连接，我们也同时更新了报文软件。Kiiltomäki 说。

在将来，控制器在需要额外增加输入和输出模块时，可以更加容易地更新控制程序或者对某些功能进行补充。在网络端，因为使用了无线产品的通讯方式，可以为这一切提供了最大的灵活性。

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/

Once named the oil capital of the world, Tulsa, Oklahoma rests near the foothills of the Southern Ozark Mountains.

Winding among these wooded hills and across the open wheatlands is a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) pipeline belonging to a midstream oil company.

Nationwide, pipeline operational data is monitored in real time from the company's office control center in Texas. For security, safety, and real-time accessibility, all critical data is transmitted via satellite to the SCADA control center.

To improve line integrity, the engineering team responsible for this 100-mile LPG pipeline wanted to increase monitoring for some non-critical data points at 12 PLCs along the length of the pipeline. The crux: how to do so when their standardized satellite solution would be cost-prohibitive for these non-critical, low-data-transfer locations. Without additional monitoring points, they were left with visibility at only three points on the pipeline. In the event of a leak, discovery requires an operator to physically drive the entire length of the pipeline between point A and point B to locate the leak, which in this case could be anywhere along a 20-, 30- or 40-mile stretch of pipeline. From a line integrity standpoint, having nothing in between these points meant less resolution as to what was happening on the pipeline, and though leaks are rare, when they occur it’s essential to find and isolate them quickly for the safety of personnel, collateral, and the environment.
  
With the plethora of wireless products now available, the engineering team began investigating alternatives to satellite for these non-critical locations.

"When I was first approached about this opportunity, I immediately thought of ProSoft," said Brian White from Rexel. "With its extensive line of products and services and history of assistance to Rexel in Oklahoma, I felt confident they could provide a viable option for this application."

Originally, 900 MHz industrial radios were considered for these stations, because of their long-range capabilities and ability to penetrate foliage. Because of the dramatically different landscape, however, a site survey concluded that of these twelve locations, three lacked the required line-of-sight. To bring these sites onto the network, towers would have to be built, which would have brought the cost of implementation close to $100,000, rendering yet another solution infeasible.
  
Luckily, every site had cell service.
  
"Cellular technology is fantastic for real-time network access to industrial devices around the world," said the Wireless Product Marketing Manager at ProSoft Technology. "This application highlights the ease with which devices in remote areas can be made accessible at an affordable price."

Within three weeks from the time the order was placed, the radios were onsite. Installation was a challenge for the company only in that they had never worked with cellular. ProSoft Technology’s technician engineer walked them through the setup process, and with 15 minutes of setup per device, had the radios talking.

Results

The cellular radios are scattered along that length of the pipeline, monitoring line pressure and valve statuses along the way. Each radio is wired to a PLC via serial Modbus®, gathering information from their remote locations. A thirteenth cellular radio is connected to the satellite network, relaying data from all twelve points back to the control center in Texas.
  
By adding these data points to the network, the company was able to minimize risk while keeping the application safe and operational. In fact, using cellular has enabled them to pinpoint line pressures to 5-mile intervals versus 40, so should pressure drop off between two of these points, they can quickly isolate leaks with as little impact as possible. 

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

 
With a pumping station that is 25 stories tall, the Changi Water Reclamation Plant, located on the diamond-shaped island of Singapore

, is the cornerstone of the Singapore Deep Water Sewage System. This system is responsible for purifying wastewater for consumption throughout the City/State of Singapore. The NEWater plant, which went online last summer, produces 50 million gallons of treated water daily. That’s the equivalent of 90 Olympic –sized swimming pools.
 
"The designers have incorporated a space saving design concept - things like stack treatment tanks and also stack treatment facilities like our sludge treatment facilities. All the treatment facilities are stacked on top of the other so as to save space," said Yong Wei Hin, assistant director of Changi Water Reclamation Plant.
Such a concept is the first in the world.
 
This monumental project needed low maintenance costs, real-time communication, with remote diagnostics and needed to be integrated with an already existing asset management system. Due to mandatory connectivity requirements, it was decided to use PROFIBUS DP V1 as the protocol for communication. This complicated matters since both Schneider Electric and Rockwell Automation PLCs were both used in the plant.
 
Schneider Electric contacted ProSoft Technology to allow the PLCs to communicate with PROFIBUS DP. With the PROFIBUS integration via 160 ProSoft Technology PROFIBUS DP V1 Quantum modules, the plant’s overall system architecture now provides high-speed communication as well as power to devices over the bus, making it possible to have very large networks.
 
The addition of the PROFIBUS DP V1 module to ProSoft’s ProTalk line of Quantum modules has helped Schneider Electric open a new avenue of communication possibilities.
 
"Schneider Electric is very strong in the process industry and wanted to bring valuable solutions with PROFIBUS and FDT/DTM technology," said Ken Roslan, Strategic Marketing Manager for ProSoft Technology. "We were able to help them expedite time-to-market and get the customer acceptance and final buy-in."
 
The Changi Water Reclamation Plant is equipped with 160 ProSoft PROFIBUS DP V1 Master modules allowing constant communication with end devices. The mega-water treatment project has a long list of field devices in a wide-ranging PROFIBUS network including Magnetic Flow Meters, Thermal Mass Flow Meters, Pressure and Differential Pressure Level Transmitters, Radar/Ultrasonic Transmitters, Dissolved Oxygen Analyzers, Temperature Transmitters and Electric Actuators.
 
The PROFIBUS DP slave devices mainly came from vendors like SIEMENS (ET200M I/O’s), Yokogawa (Flow transmitter & Differential Pressure sensor), Vega (Ultra Sonic sensors, Level sensors, etc), ABB (VSD), Schneider Electric (VSD & DOL starters) and Siemens (VSD).
With Intelligent Field Device Management (FDT/DTM), ProSoft Technology as a third party has helped Schneider Electric to integrate PROFIBUS device level to its PLC.
 
The PTQ-PDPMV1 functions as a PROFIBUS DPV1 Master. Developed upon Quantum backplane transfer technology the protocol module sends information back and forth through the Quantum processor. It collects all the necessary information on the configured PROFIBUS DP network. Built on Siemens ASIC ASPC2 Step E with Infineon C165 Microprocessor, the module’s Firmware is flash-upgradeable, and allows for slave messaging, extended diagnostics and alarm handling, and notification, and more.
 
The Changi Water Reclamation Plant has been operating successfully since June 2009.

A water utility in Oregon needed to update the control equipment in its filter plant.

Some of the equipment was 25 years old and could only start a pump and give a run confirmation. The utility needed more information, including flow and pressure. It had legacy PLCs reporting through expensive phone lines. Industrial Systems was the contractor who sold the water district on installing Allen-Bradley® PLCs using a ProSoft Technology migration module to communicate with the older equipment via Modbus®.

Three Allen-Bradley® PLCs were installed with a ProSoft module in each for the remote site, the pump station, and the reservoir site. Modems were used to communicate to the master station. They are now able to get the data they needed.

Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s Migration Solutions here.

A major company known for engineering, building, and managing water treatment plants was faced with a new challenge.

At a French treatment facility designed by the company, an innovative method was implemented for a common wastewater treatment application involving sludge drying.

The sludge drying process is a residual element of the application that takes place once water has been cleaned and decanted.

 Radios and robots

In the solar sludge drying process developed by a subsidiary of the manufacturer, sludge is treated by a centrifuge and laid out in windrows in a greenhouse heated by solar radiation. An automated robotic turner is used to aerate the sludge and accelerate water evaporation. The robots are radio-controlled, which provides a more robust solution than the traditional wired approach. With wireless control of the robots, the entire operation is automated, and there is no further need for operators to enter the greenhouse.
  
The company decided to attach radios to the robots to enable information to be sent to and from the control station. This means the operator can control the robot remotely, program its movements, and know its current position. The robot has an onboard controller that interfaces with the radio.

“Implementation proved to be very simple, thanks in particular to ProSoft Technology’s technical support,” explained a representative of the system integrator. “As far as the choice of supplier was concerned, we stuck to the specifications given by RG2I, their local distributor. Our major concern was reliability. We had to have a reliable solution, with none of our users encountering any problems. This is indeed the case with ProSoft Technology´s wireless solution.”
  
So far, ProSoft Technology radios have been installed at half a dozen of the company´s sites.

A reliable transmission system

The wireless solution brought all of the advantages of wireless connection to industrial automation applications, while still offering high levels of reliability. In addition to its ability to withstand harsh operating conditions, it also improves the transmission of Ethernet data packets.

The standards set out in IEEE 802.11 (commonly known as “Wi-Fi”) bring an extremely high level of security, flexibility, and interoperability to industrial automation applications. Originally designed for office and home applications, these less-robust technologies have limitations when it comes to industrial protocol transfer, resulting in transmission problems for industrial automation systems associated with the radio transmission method used for Ethernet packets. But ProSoft’s wireless solutions ensure optimal transfer of data packets. To improve data packet transfer, the radios use a specific signal processing algorithm implemented by ProSoft Technology, which allows better use of the full bandwidth and supports the fast data transmission speeds demanded by industrial automation engineers. This is particularly vital for industrial applications (involving protocols such as EtherNet/IP™) with a need to transport non-critical messaging data but also critical industrial I/O data.
  
With its “Power over Ethernet” (PoE) specification, the power supply and connection of the radio system to the wired Ethernet is done via a single cable (instead of two), which greatly simplifies installation and reduces set-up times. Another valuable function of the wireless solution is that it supports serial encapsulation, which means that serial peripherals can be used and integrated into the main Ethernet architecture of the control system. The radio used in this application ensures high performance for both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz band configurations.
  
These wireless solutions are ideal for industrial applications: industrial grade enclosures, extended operating temperature ranges, compliance with shock and vibration resistance standards, certification for use on sites where there is a risk of explosion, fitting to DIN rails, and more. These factors were important to the system integrator in their decision to select a ProSoft wireless solution for their application.

To learn more about ProSoft Technology’s Wireless Solutions, click here.

A mine in Australia is a deposit of very rich copper and zinc and has yielded significant amounts of gold since its opening in 1998. In order to overcome several environmental issues, the ore concentrate needed to be transported 70 km via several large slurry pipelines to the nearest rail link.

There, the ore would be extracted from the water, which is then pumped back to the mine’s site to be recycled. Because of the volumes of critical data generated at the de-watering plant and to ensure that environmental regulations were not breached, it was essential that the field data be continuously transferred to a central DCS system.
 
The mine is centrally operated using a Yokogawa DCS, while a distributed Allen-Bradley® control system handles control in the field. To integrate the Allen-Bradley controller into the Yokogawa DCS system, Modbus® was selected as the common communication protocol.
 
Because the Yokogawa DCS system lacked the ability to send the strings necessary to dial a telephone modem, an intermediate "sub-master" A-B system with a ProSoft Technology Modbus communication solution was added at the mine’s site. The communication solution had the added capability of initiating telephone modem dialing built into the product. The sub-master acts as a transparent link between the Yokogawa DCS and the remote A-B controller at the dewatering plant.
 
In the mine’s sub-master controller, Port 1 on the communication solution is configured as a Modbus Master port with dialing and is connected to a telephone modem. Port 2, configured as a Slave, is connected directly to the Yokogawa DCS. The mine’s processor initiates all Read and Write commands to the remote system at the site 70 km away through the dial-up modem. The Yokogawa DCS, acting as the Modbus Master, simply accesses the data out of the local communication module's memory. To provide additional robustness in the system, a watchdog function was added between the A-B controllers to ensure that the Yokogawa DCS would positively identify a communications failure.
 
Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s Modbus solutions here.

A packaging machinery company in Chicago wanted to provide a control solution for one of their applications that was non-proprietary, enabling packaging professionals easy access to update applications when needed. The company required the flexibility of a PLC and the processing speed of an industrial computer to have optimal performance in their multihead weigher/vertical form fill seal bag machine (VFFS) application. The company found a solution in a Rockwell Automation® ControlLogix® with ProSoft Technology's in-rack PC.

 
“The in-rack PC’s high-speed communications across the ControlLogix backplane permits the tightly integrated PC-based application the company was looking for," said the ProSoft Regional Sales Manager who helped the customer. “This is the ideal solution for this type of analytical and data-centric application."
 
The industrialized in-rack PC delivers the processing power required to control the speed of the multihead weigher. ProSoft’s solution connects directly to the backplane of the ControlLogix, which gives the application an extremely high data exchange rate between the in-rack PC and the PLC. The speed of the calculations for the multihead weigher is pivotal to the speed and efficiency of the integrated scale/VFFS application, as some of the larger applications have up to 18 buckets per Multihead Weigher system.

Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s solutions for Rockwell Automation platforms here.

Danetta Bramhall
 
A hundred years ago, grain was ground into flour using two large stones, called millstones. Since then, the science of milling grain into flour has changed dramatically. Improved equipment, better transportation and particularly computerization have increased milling capacity, allowing mills to expand their production.
 
Four recently constructed mills in Egypt are a prime example. In an effort to cut costs and produce a higher grade flour, developers have built new, modern mills in the same buildings where giant millstones used to stand.

 
Old Stones to PLC Control

Danish company, United Milling Systems (UMS), designed and built four new mills in Egypt with Automatic Syd A/S as sub-supplier of the electrical system. Two of the mills, located in Cairo and Ibrahim Awad, Alexandria, were actually converted from old stone mills into modern milling plants. The other two, located in Sowahey and Moharam Bey, Alexandria, were turnkey projects, rehabilitating old roller mills.
 
UMS installed a total of 34 of the new Satake SRMA roller mills in 3 of the locations. The SRMA not only incorporates the very latest technology, such as fully electronic feeder units and a toothed belt differential drive, but is also simple and user friendly. In the fourth mill, UMS installed a short milling system based on their own developed disc mill. This new solution allows the El Tppin mill, (South Cairo & Giza Flour Mills & Bakery Co.), to produce nearly twice as much flour per day, in a substantially reduced area, compared to a conventional roller mill.
 
Automatic Syd specializes in the design and manufacture of electrical switchboards, control panels and the development of customized PLC and PC software. It was their job to supply a centralized control station that would allow one miller to monitor the entire plant. UMS and Automatic Syd faced a choice: they could install their own version of a proprietary system, running closed applications or, they could opt for an open communication platform.
 
Ten years ago, proprietary systems were the norm. But companies soon found that these closed systems were, in the long run, user unfriendly, making the process of integrating new processes and equipment difficult, expensive, and time-consuming, requiring diversified skills and tools. Today, these closed systems are slowly being replaced by open communication platforms.
 
The Modbus protocol is one of these open applications. It has become so popular, that in many instances it is accepted as the defacto industry standard. This was the application chosen for the mills.
 
Allen-Bradley PLC5 processors were connected to the mill equipment. However, the A-B processors are not inherently Modbus compatible. Therefore, a Modbus interface was needed.
 
Modbus Interface Needed
Automatic Syd contacted Rockwell Automation-Denmark for a possible solution. They recommended ProSoft Technology's 3100-MCM module. This module acts as a Modbus interface, providing highly configurable Modbus Master and Slave capabilities to Allen-Bradley PLC and SLC applications.
 
"Quite simply, the ProSoft Modbus communication interface makes it possible for Allen-Bradley platforms to communicate with a multitude of industrial devices," said Doug Sharratt, lead developer for ProSoft Technology. "Because of our partnership with Rockwell Automation, our Modbus module is designed to fit in the A-B rack, allowing all data exchange to occur over the backplane."
 
The A-B PLC with the ProSoft module installed in the rack, collects the data and displays it on the miller's PC using Allen-Bradley's RSView.
 
Centralized Control Cuts Costs

"With the ProSoft module," said Arne Sigfredsen of Automatic Syd, "One miller can easily monitor the entire plant and, in case of emergencies, temporarily take over control until another miller has reached the specific machine to solve the problem. This is a cost effective savings, since it takes fewer personnel and you get a lot of information such as alarms, stock levels, motor loads, etc. from the plant."
 
"The 3100-MCM Modbus module was one of the first products manufactured by ProSoft Technology," said Alain Chevalin, ProSoft's Regional Sales Manager for Europe and the Middle East. "But eleven years after its invention we are still finding new uses for it. Many industrial devices available today have implemented communications using the Modbus protocol. With our communication interfaces, users in a variety of industries are able to gather a great deal of data which can enhance the understanding of the process or, as in the case of these flour mills, allow the system to be controlled more efficiently."
 
The Alexandria Flour Mills and Bakery Co., located in Ibrahim Awad and Moharam Bey were the first two mills to go on-line in 1998, producing 150 tons and 225 tons of flour per day. A third, located in Sowahey began operating in December of 1999, also producing 225 tons of flour per day.
 
The fourth mill is located in El Tppin in Cairo. This new disc mill solution allows the El Tppin mill to produce 450 tons of flour per day. The El Tppin mill has been operating successfully since May of 2000.
 
United Milling Systems

Accomplishing the task of building modern flour mills where millstones used to stand is a complex undertaking. It takes the combined efforts of a number of companies, all working together in their area of expertise.
 
It was nothing new for United Milling Systems to receive the contract to convert old stone and roller mills into modern milling plants. The Danish firm is considered an expert engineering company, pioneering the development of many modern milling techniques. Working with internationally renowned scientists, UMS is continually updating their product development and process optimization, developing many of their own patents.
 
Since they supply complete turnkey milling plants and processing lines, they sub-contracted Automatic Syd A/S, also a Danish company, to supply the electrical needs for the four mills.
 
One of Automatic Syd's tasks required that all of the roller mills (in some cases for as many as 30 roller mills) in each plant be connected to a centralized control panel.
 
"Every mill has a keypad, where the miller can take over the control of the mill in emergencies," said Arne Sigfredsen of Automatic Syd. "But some of the mills have 30 roller mills, and without centralized control, it is impossible to monitor all roller mills."
 
In order to incorporate the most modern equipment and processes available, UMS and Automatic Syd chose Allen-Bradley hardware because of its nationally recognized name brand and the availability of future product support. The Modbus protocol was chosen because of its 'open' communication, making future expansion and change easy and cost effective.
 
Making It Happen
 
ProSoft Technology, Inc.

Integrating multiple applications was exactly what was needed for the Egytian flour mills, since the specifications called for the Modbus protocol. That was where ProSoft Technology stepped in.
 
"One of the things we pride ourselves in is our ability to fit our products to a particular application and, when needed, to quickly develop solutions based on the market needs and specific customer requests," said Doug Sharratt, President and Lead Developer for ProSoft Technology. "We are a major supplier of protocol emulation modules for the Allen-Bradley family of products."
 
"What we do may seem like a small part of the big picture," said Alain Chevalin, ProSoft's Regional Sales Manger for Europe and the Middle East. "But the fact is, our interface modules allow companies like United Milling Systems, Allen-Bradley and Automatic Syd to use the equipment they feel is best suited for the situation without having to worry about specific protocols. If we don't have an application interface that will work for a particular client, we're willing to seriously look at developing one. We view ourselves as a 'market driven company.'"
 
Rockwell Automation is known worldwide as a recognized leader in industrial automation technology.

"Complete Automation expresses Rockwell Automation's commitment to promise and deliver integrated open solutions, superior value-added services, global supply and local delivery, and world-class components," said Randy Freeman, vice-president of global marketing for Rockwell Automation in a recent interview with Iron & Steel Review.
 
"The core of this company is great products that differentiate us from many, many other suppliers," said Keith Nosbusch, President of Rockwell Automation Control Systems in an interview for AB Journal in March of last year. "The seamless integration of multiple applications that Rockwell Automation offers lets our manufacturing customers become more flexible, agile, and responsive to the needs of their customers."

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.

Each day, a Chinese river’s raw water is collected, filtered and purified, and then sold to the country’s tap water companies.  

A while back, one of those tap water companies began construction of a water factory. Phase I of the project established a SCADA system for the factory consisting of an ABB Modcell Multiloop Controller/Processor communicating with Modbus® and a proprietary network.

 
Clean water could then be pumped through a series of pipes to supply the daily tap water needs for over 43,000 Shanghai residents.
 
"When the factory was established, it used a SCADA system only to supervise the working processes without any control functionality,” said the manager at Shanghai Yuandong Science & Technology Ltd. (SYST), the system integrator.
 
In any water system as complex as this one, the water flow can vary dramatically from hour to hour and day to day, depending on domestic demand cycles and the more unpredictable aspects such as rainfall and storms. This makes it essential that the Master Control System be equipped not only with monitoring capabilities but control as well.

Control Ability

"The second phase of the project planned to add control ability to the plant," the SYST manager said. "But they found it impossible since the substations were communicating as slaves, and thus couldn't exchange data and information between each other. The main problem was that data exchanged between the slaves needed to be accomplished through the master node. As long as a personal computer carried out the master task, we could not count on its performance, steadiness, and security. Use of a PLC instead of the PC was preferred."
 
In order to add the control needed, SYST added an Allen-Bradley® PLC-5®20E with Ethernet capabilities. However, since the original SCADA system was ABB communicating with Modbus, an interface was needed to allow the Modbus end devices to communicate with the A-B system. The solution SYST found was ProSoft Technology’s Modbus communication module.

 
Since the module communicates over the backplane, needing only standard ladder programming, it provided highly configurable Modbus Master and Slave capability to the existing A-B PLC.
 
"It was the first time Shanghai Yuandong Science and Technology had used this particular module," said the ProSoft Regional Sales Manager who worked on the application. "But it certainly wasn't the last. They also installed the module in the control system for the compressors in a major automotive plant. Since the module fits directly into the controller, in both instances, it provided a seamless integration of technologies."
 
"The Modbus module played an important role in the second phase of this project," said the SYST manager. "Without the ProSoft module, this phase could not have been realized."
 
When asked what the deciding factors were in choosing the ProSoft module for this project, the SYST general manager noted the solution’s ease of operation and implementation, and the higher profits the new setup helped lead to.

A Unique Partnership

This unique partnership of integrated technologies between Rockwell Automation® and ProSoft Technology has enabled SCADA systems around the world to gather data and control operations in a multitude of plants just like the end user’s.

 
"The Modbus module was also used at a similar facility elsewhere in China,” the ProSoft sales manager said. "According to Rockwell Automation, the customer needed to collect data from Diris Power Meters, which have embedded Modbus communications. They elected to use the module, which allowed them to collect 30 parameters from the power meters instead of the 3 parameters they would have gotten using Analog I/O. The bottom line is, our interface module made more data available for better control and monitoring."
 
"We take great pride in our ability to help Rockwell Automation interface with alternate networks," said Doug Sharratt, ProSoft founder, said at the time of this application. "We have been able to provide a number of solutions for the water and wastewater industry in China.”

The seamless integration of Rockwell Automation and ProSoft Technology is helping China realize its goal of enough clean, fresh water for all of its citizens.
 
Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s solutions for Water and Wastewater applications here.

The Application

In Chakan, Pune, India, a market-leading manufacturer of utility vehicles built a modern greenfield facility from the ground up with state-of-the-art equipment.

At the heart of the plant is the Electrified Monorail System (EMS) conveyor, designed to deliver reliable, safe, quiet, and efficient transportation of the vehicles from one work station to another along the assembly line. The EMS runs throughout the entire length of the Trim, Chassis and Final assembly (TCF) line of the vehicle in the general assembly shop. The light truck manufactured in this facility is transported by a wireless EMS conveyor. The TCF line is considered the final stage in production, where components are added to the vehicle, including “trim” components such as windshield glass and seats, and operational components such as the engine and wheels, before final vehicle testing.

Control and Communication Automation

For consulting, specifying and planning of this project, the manufacturer worked with Yantra Automation, one of the largest Rockwell Automation® distributors in India, in conjunction with their local Rockwell Automation account manager, and with the system integration company Precision Automation and Robotics India Limited (PARI). The team worked closely to develop the best overall solution for this sophisticated project.
  
This being a new system and a greenfield plant, they were not bound by constraints associated with some of the older monorail systems found in manufacturing plants. Thus, they were able to design a system that easily conformed to the goals of the project and the manufacturer’s commitment toward flexible and lean manufacturing. This entailed the following goals:

• To eliminate communication issues and concerns associated with rigid copper bus bars and brush collectors commonly used for communication with EMS carriers
• To optimize reliability and uptime of the EMS conveyor system
• To deliver real-time communication with Programmable Automation Controllers (PACs) and Input/Output (I/O) modules for enhanced conveyor control
• And ultimately, to achieve optimum response times for managing the EMS vehicle carriers

 
From Yantra Automation, Ajay Kulkarni and Manish Sahni began the challenge of designing a complex wireless communication system for the assembly manufacturing line - an ambitious goal in a large-scale project involving multiple carriers in continuous motion along the overhead Electric Monorail System. Together, the team selected a Rockwell Automation control solution supported by ProSoft Technology wireless Ethernet radios. The challenge: creating a seamless and reliable communication system between each carrier and the controller as they move throughout the plant.

Implementation

PARI was commissioned for the design and implementation of the specific assembly line. PARI is a turnkey integration company specializing in top-to-bottom conveyor system design, robotics, and controls and communication automation in the automotive industry in India.
  
PARI designed the full vehicle assembly line to operate in real time on the EtherNet/IP™ control network, using several Rockwell Automation ControlLogix® PACs and supporting peripherals on the shop floor, including I/O and Variable Frequency Drives. The decision to go with ProSoft Technology Industrial Hotspot radios was made primarily because of their industrial hardware and solid reputation for supporting Rockwell Automation controls and communication interfaces seamlessly, in addition to the ease of operation.
  
Movement of the EMS carriers for transporting vehicles through the different stages of assembly is handled over a wireless EtherNet/IP network. The control system consists of one ControlLogix PAC on the conveyor and one ControlLogix PAC on the engine decking system for body marriage. The conveyor PAC is hardwired to two ProSoft Technology master radios, while the engine decking PAC is hardwired to a third master radio. The conveyor PAC is wirelessly connected with 33 individual carriers along the EMS, while the engine decking PAC is connected wirelessly with 3 engine carriers. Each independent EMS carrier has a local control panel with Rockwell Automation I/O and a Variable Frequency Drive (VFD), and a ProSoft Technology access point acting as a repeater to establish wireless communication between the main control panel equipment and their respective PAC. The carrier radios communicate with each other, as well as with the master radios.
  
This EMS application is time-critical, so each repeater radio is connected with its parent master radio at all times to avoid switching delays as communications change from one master radio to another while the carriers are in motion. The master radio in each conveyor PAC has two Omni antennas with a splitter to deal with multipath fading effect. The architecture fully supports seamless roaming by the carriers.

Results

After some initial challenges with line-of-sight issues, which were resolved by adding another master radio and elevating their locations, the system is now able to provide real-time communication between the EMS carriers and the PACs on the assembly-plant floor, including real-time I/O status for conveyor movement control. The system also enables wireless synchronization between the floor-mounted engine trolleys and the overhead EMS carrier, for the smooth decking of the engine.
  
The flexible architecture permits independent operation of each vehicle carrier, enabling carriers to be programmed for different speeds based upon their location on the conveyor path. The conveyor speeds are seamlessly switched in the process zones, transit zones, straight and curve zones, manual speed zones, and slow-and-stop speed zones. Limit switches in the vertical elevators enable ramp-up and ramp-down velocities for elevation changes, ensuring the safety of the carriers on the line. Buffers in the conveyors can be adjusted based upon prevailing production pull systems.
  
By opting for this wireless network, the manufacturer was able to gain several benefits, including:

• The ability to control the EMS conveyor and the engine decking carrier in real time and synchronizing the VFDs with the engine decking carriers
• Elimination of complex wiring/cabling and cat tracks for communication cable
• Elimination of additional bus bars for communications with associated complex communications interfaces
• Seamless and robust communication between the PACs and the I/O
• Determinism with all the I/Os on each EMS carrier for better scan time management

What Happened Next

Since the project went live, the manufacturer has seen an increase in uptime, reliability and consistency in production output, enhancing their commitment toward lean manufacturing. 

Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s Wireless Solutions  here.

A while back, a major oil company took a good look at their legacy system and didn’t like what it saw.

The centralized control system, which had been installed in 1978, used multi-drop, leased telephone lines. Four operators at consoles in Houston, Texas, controlled the pipelines for 12 hours a day. This left large stretches of its pipeline unmanned, with no support. The system was already operating at maximum capacity and had many technical risks. They were concerned about the availability of replacement parts for the old RTUs, loop controllers, and alarm annunciators. They needed to know the exact contents of a pipeline, wherever it was, instead of the meter-in/meter-out leak detection they had. Their data entry system was cumbersome, in some cases requiring that data be entered two or three times.

“We reviewed our control system strategy and concluded that we had a unique and hard-to-maintain system. It consisted of dedicated, custom-built and programmed RTUs, along with a lot of odds and ends,” said the company’s lead project engineer.

In short, the company needed to improve its pipeline reporting system by adopting a platform that would let it automate the manual activities to improve efficiency in its small-diameter, high-pressure pipelines running throughout the United States.

First, the company abandoned its old leased telephone lines and went to a VSAT satellite system. The VSAT Ku Band Network system supports 170 sites where the company has 200 PLCs and RTU addresses handling about 20,000 I/O points.

In addition to the VSAT, the company installed a dial backup using analog lines and communicating via the Modbus® protocol to 140 critical sites.

 “When the company installed the new equipment, the old equipment couldn’t communicate with it,” said Ken Hopwood, Software Engineering Manager at ProSoft Technology. “So, they used a ProSoft Modbus module as an interface.”

“When the company approached us, they needed to eliminate the need for continuous polling that was necessary on their old system,” Mr. Hopwood said. “It created communication delays when using the satellite which were expensive. The module we created for them is basically a Modbus Slave but with a few modifications. One, it has Report by Exception, giving it the ability to send timed, unsolicited data reports to the Master Station in Houston. This eliminated the need for continuous polling. The CMS module also contains some specialized data that is unique to the company.”

“In the past, many communication systems were closed,” said the ProSoft Regional Sales Manager who helped the company. “Since the Modbus protocol is open, it has become a de facto industry standard for many industrial devices today, especially in the oil and gas industry. The popularity of our Modbus module doesn’t really surprise me. I see instances like this company’s on a weekly basis. Using the Modbus module to communicate from old equipment to new equipment is simply the most cost-effective way (and in some cases, the only way) to accomplish their goals.”

Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s solutions for the Oil and Gas industry here.

Meter Maintenance & Controls Inc. (MMCI) is a system integrator and technology supplier in Redlands, California, that specializes in true turnkey liquid measurement solutions. They have set up or retrofitted plants for a major international paint and coatings company in a number of cities. New plants receive a top-to-bottom paint blending and batching system, with everything from the piping, to the electrical, to the process equipment and programming being supplied, installed, and programmed by MMCI.

To handle the paint blending process in each of these plants, MMCI recommends Emerson Process Micro Motion flow meters. These flow meters measure mass flow, volume flow, and density and temperature variables, and provide precise control measurement of the various ingredients that are blended together to create a given batch of paint.

From a management and operation standpoint, the end user wanted a system that would allow the entire enterprise to be integrated, from the plant floor controls to the information systems. Plant operators need diagnostic information for monitoring of the process and for identifying maintenance needs or problems on the line without requiring that the operator be trained on the control system. The laboratory also needed access to this information for quality control and trending.

As a loyal Rockwell Automation® customer, MMCI chose to use a Rockwell Automation Process Automation System (PAS) to extract data from the flow meters. As each flow meter batches a raw material into a mixing tank, the process variables are recorded by RSSql™ and ultimately presented to the end user’s operators in a Rockwell Automation RSView® HMI. In RSView an alarm system is implemented with predetermined setpoints that, when triggered, alert the operator and provide cues indicating the proper action can be taken. These process variables are also pulled into RSSql to give the end user’s laboratory access to historical data for all past batches.

Challenge

With the ideal equipment selected for the plant, what remained was a networking problem.

Emerson Process developed the HART (Highway Addressable Remote Transducer) Multi-drop protocol in the 1980s, so naturally the Micro Motion systems are programmable and communicate via the protocol. HART is a highly accurate and robust protocol, making it ideal in process industries, but to push this diagnostic information through to the HMI, MMCI needed to convert this data somewhere along the line to Rockwell Automation’s EtherNet/IP™ protocol.

“Rockwell Automation Ethernet communication is like the golden child. With other providers of HART interfaces we have used, we have needed to use an OPC server to collect and distribute the information, which required that we write our own code,” said a programmer and systems engineer for MMCI. “We just needed a way to communicate between our ControlLogix® PAC and the flow meters.”

Solution

Terry Davis, CEO of MMCI, approached Tom Thuerbach, Branch Manager for Royal Wholesale Electric in Riverside, California, to help him find a solution. Thuerbach recommended ProSoft Technology’s EtherNet/IP-to-HART multi-drop communication gateway.

"I know Terry Davis demands high-quality, reliable products for his customers. It was an easy decision to recommend Rockwell Automation and ProSoft products," Thuerbach said.

A Process Automation Business Manager for Rockwell Automation added: "EtherNet/IP is core to Rockwell Automation's Integrated Architecture that helps end-users like this one converge industrial and business technologies plant-wide. ProSoft's gateway offering leverages the EtherNet/IP backbone to create a powerful process control application that can easily communicate with other plant-floor and information systems."

“MMCI has been using Rockwell and ProSoft products for years…possibly since we first started as a company in 1989,” Davis said. “We use ProSoft’s Modbus® ControlLogix cards all the time, so it was a no-brainer. Now we try to use their HART gateway in all the paint plants we work in, and have plans to apply it in many other industries we serve. Just recently MMCI replaced a Pepperl + Fuchs HART Multiplexer system with ProSoft’s in a facility. We were glad to find a modern solution for an old communication platform.”

Implementation

In all, MMCI has set up five plants for the end user, with each project involving anywhere from 30 to 50 flow meters.

In a general application, MMCI has all HART flow meters linked up to a single ProSoft gateway. The gateway routes the data over Ethernet to the ControlLogix. The ProSoft module acts as a bridge, allowing the PAS to communicate seamlessly with the flow meters. Once data is extracted from the meters it can be distributed to RSSql and RSView.

Conclusion

The greatest benefits of the new system are streamlined efficiency, simplified monitoring and operation, and the creation of a quality-control process for preventative and predictive maintenance.

“Our plants are happy with the feedback that we are now receiving from our meters,” says the end user’s director of engineering. “Using this information, we have been able to modify our preventative maintenance plans to stay ahead of any issues before they occur. For example, we began changing out filter bags before the pumps and meters. In the past if the bag wasn't changed out we would reduce the flow to the point that we would have meter inaccuracies. Now that the system tracks this data, we have been able to see how often we should be changing these bags to avoid any errors when batching, and are able to act before an error occurs.

“Also, in the past if someone had a theory that a metering problem caused a quality issue with a batch, we could not prove or disprove them. We had to look at the meter the next time it was used. Now, with stored data several times per minute for each meter charge, we can go to the real data from the questioned charge and either prove or disprove this theory. The ability to avoid meter inaccuracies will definitely help us from a quality standpoint.”

The end user’s Lead Engineer added: “With the HART system we can track and standardize flow rates of materials between sites. We also use the density outputs to monitor solids levels in our slurry tanks. Logging the history enables us to track line cloggages and take preventive action. In several situations we have used the historical HART data in conjunction with RSSql to troubleshoot issues that have occurred within the batching system itself... meters faulting out, misdirected flows, incorrect RSSql transactions, and more.”

From a monitoring and operations standpoint, the process allows any person in the plant at any given time to view activity on the floor, the Watch Dog Timers set up by MMCI, and any other critical information. This saves money and time for the end user in regard to hiring and training employees, plus the rework and maintenance that would otherwise have to be done by a technician. The system has a user-friendly manner and because the measurement system is so accurate, the system nearly runs itself and downtime is mostly eliminated.

“I know the end user appreciates not having to call us out there every time they run into a maintenance hiccup, though the systems still operate without issue today,” Davis said.

Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s communication solutions for Rockwell Automation platforms here.

Renewable energy is the way of the future. We see hydropower towers on river beds, wind farms on hillsides, and solar panels on rooftops. Now a company in Pennsylvania has perfected a way to produce biogas, or a gas fuel derived from the decay of organic matter, by extracting methane from decomposing landfill waste and supplying it to customers as an alternative “greenhouse” fuel.

Unharnessed, methane is one of the most potent greenhouse gases. The end user’s project uses wells to both oxygenate the waste mass — expediting the decomposition process — and to trap the raw biogas before it can escape into the atmosphere. Separators are then used to clean the gas by extracting methane from the remaining gas substance (composed of carbon dioxide and trace elements) for use as a natural gas alternative.

The whole process creates a symbiotic eco-relationship between waste and energy by aiding in the waste degradation process; repurposing methane that would have otherwise been emitted into the atmosphere; providing a less expensive form of energy to the world; and providing an alternative to less eco-friendly options.

Biogas Distribution

One of the company’s biggest customers, a major international food supplier, uses the green energy as a natural gas substitute to power the boilers that keep its entire plant operating. Because the biogas supplied by the company is approximately half the cost of natural gas, the customer is able to significantly decrease their power costs without much of an upfront investment. To utilize the company’s biogas product, the customer had to customize their boiler system, but that required little more than increasing pipe sizes and installing an alternate piping system to be used in lieu of their natural gas or fuel supply.

“It’s just another supply link that has to be put in and retrofitted into the existing scheme of things. This cost is recouped quickly by the savings they receive from our program,” said an electrical engineer with the biogas-production company.

Monitoring Consumption

The plant is relatively large and spread out, with metering panels located throughout the various buildings on site to track the amount of gas used. Inside each of the three panels is a Rockwell Automation® CompactLogix™ PAC, which monitors gas flow variables to measure consumption at the facility.

To connect the biogas company’s main facility to its customers, a T1 hardwired phone line is used. The next decision was how to link up the end of the phone line at the customer site to the three PACs.

“Because the plants are so spread out, we opted to use wireless at those points to save on installation. We just needed to find a product that is robust and easy to implement,” the electrical engineer said. ProSoft Technology’s water- and dust-tight Industrial Hotspot radios were selected.

“We use CAT-5 cable and Power over Ethernet (PoE) for both power supply to the radio and communication between the radio and the PAC. PoE allows us to plug the radios right into our PACs, plus the casing allows them to be mounted outside without weather concerns,” the engineer said.

The Result: A Fully Automated System

The T1 connection links the plant back to a master PAC in the biogas company’s main plant, which is constantly pulling meter data from the remote customer sites and feeding the information up the chain to corporate for billing.

The bandwidth allows them to see things in real-time, and is entirely automated so there is no need to go onsite at the customer’s facility to collect meter information.

“The radios are great. They saved us on installation and simplified implementation. I would recommend them to anyone,” the engineer said. “My ProSoft sales representative was incredibly helpful, involved in the process, and knowledgeable on the technology and application. He deserves kudos.”

Benefits

The biogas company is a carbon-negative facility. They convert their own product onsite into electricity using an electrical generator to run their facility, so they are entirely self-sustained. The balance of remaining unused electricity is sold to the local utilities company, reducing dependency on fossil fuels.

The food manufacturer can feel good too. By using repurposed methane, the highly potent greenhouse gas was not emitted into the atmosphere.

“Landfill-gas-to-energy is not just an environmentally responsible choice, it makes sense financially,” the biogas company’s engineer said. “Another one of our customers was able to save enough money using our natural gas substitute to add a third shift during the week and schedule weekends into production. The extra shifts mean extra jobs. It’s a nice feeling.”

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

Californians have always been faced with the problem of how best to conserve, control and move water. California has a wide diversity of climactic and geographical contrasts. The northern part of the state, with its alpine forests receives as much as 100 inches or more of rain per year, while the central and southern parts of the state range from arid desert to fertile farm land with some areas receiving less than 2 inches per year. Population centers have grown up in locations where there is not a sufficient water supply. The central valley, running from Sacramento to Bakersfield, contains some of the most fertile farm land in the world, most of which is dependent on irrigation. Because of this need to conserve, control and move water to areas of need, California developed the State Water Project, the largest state-built water development project in the United States

One water district is a small part of this statewide water project. Located in the southern portion of California’s fertile San Joaquin Valley, the district supplies irrigation water for over 45,000 acres of crops including grapes, citrus, almonds, and pistachios.

A while back, the district decided that the level of reliability was not acceptable in its current system. Parts were no longer available for their legacy system and buried wire was degrading with age. So, the district decided to upgrade its system to allow remote control of facilities and monitoring of power usage and quality, and to enhance the ability to perform load shifting for remote facilities.

“The water district needed a name-brand solution with local support,” said the operations manager for Prousys, Inc., the system integrator chosen to construct the new system. “We recommended Allen-Bradley® hardware.”
 

Allen-Bradley processors were installed to replace the aging Westinghouse PLCs at each of the five remote well sites. In order to monitor power usage and detect anomalies in the Multilin PQM Power Monitors, a ProSoft Technology Modbus Communication Module was installed in each processor.

“This is a perfect example of how ProSoft modules are used ever day to connect Allen-Bradley hardware with other networks,” said the ProSoft Regional Sales Manager who worked with the district. “We receive numerous requests on a daily basis for modules in the water/wastewater industry. Because our modules are designed to be used as ‘in-rack’ solutions for Allen-Bradley processors, it is a cost-effective way for plant managers to use their existing Allen-Bradley equipment with other network’s protocols.”
 

A SCADA Master Control system was also installed consisting of an Intellution Fix/DMACS HMI and an Allen-Bradley PLC with two ProSoft DF1 Communication Modules in order to poll five well sites, three pump stations, four reservoirs, and five check stations via a Data-Linc radio and modem.
 

Redundancy is a key factor in most water systems. Prousys installed and configured a second Intellution HMI to provide control redundancy. In the event of a failure in the primary controller, the system switches to the backup, ensuring seamless control in the plant.

“The system will keep right on running if the HMI goes down,” explained Prousys’ operations manager.

 The system’s pump stations are controlled according to the levels in the associated wells. The precise operation of the system depends on the accurate measurement of system levels and flows across the entire water system. Flow and level meters relay these measures back to the central control room for monitoring and control. Allen-Bradley PanelView™ terminals were installed at each of the three pump stations.
 

“The new system now gives the water district full control of all remote sites,” said Prousys’ operations manager. “The SCADA system can now track station flow rates, overflow events, well level, in-flow, and out-flow. They also have the capability to detect numerous system failures including power, high/low voltage, phase imbalance, high/low amperes, frequency, load factor, and low water level. Since the ProSoft modules communicate over the backplane with the Allen-Bradley processors, they were critical to the success of this project. ProSoft provided the ‘missing link’ in the communication chain, seamlessly allowing connectivity between these differing networks.”
  
 Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s solutions for Rockwell Automation® platforms here.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

See The Video

This isn’t your ordinary zip line. SkySurfer is a zip line and roller coaster combined into one. People ride SkySurfer standing, sitting, or laying flat on one of three open-air carts, without cages or handrails, as it goes up and down around the nearly one-mile cable through the urban and wooded area. Two other adventurers are also going along the rollercoaster-zip line hybrid on their own separate carts, with the three moving simultaneously at different spots on the course. This requires the utmost safety measures to be in place.

Before people were able to experience this thrill ride, it had to pass several tests. One of the tests required each slave Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) on the three carts to communicate with the Allen-Bradley® MicroLogix™ 1100 master PLC on the flight deck. The master PLC has an HMI connected to it so an operator can start a cart and monitor data.

The Problem

The original wireless radio communication system that was installed to communicate the distance between the carts wasn’t working properly. There was a 40-second delay in data reception, which is an eternity when it comes to safety. The main purpose for the wireless system is collision avoidance.

Each cart has an encoder on it, which tells how far along the cart is on the track based on each time the wheel spins. Each slave PLC is doing the math and the radio is supposed to send the encoder signal to the master PLC, which can tell the cart to slow down if it gets too close to another cart. The original radio communication system wasn’t performing its job.

Project Manager Jared Story spent months trying just about everything he could to get his original radio communication system to work. He originally thought it was a software issue. It wasn’t. Story wanted to open in time for the holiday crowds. Time was running short. It was early November and Story still couldn’t get his original wireless radio system to work.

Technical support from the original radio system company was non-existent. Their excuse for not sending out technical support was that Story didn’t buy the radios directly from them. “They refused to help me. It didn’t make me happy,” he said.

The Solution

Story heard about ProSoft Technology through an engineer who had used ProSoft solutions. He then contacted an automation distributor in Springfield, Mo. Its field representative suggested he contact ProSoft Technology.

The solution was ProSoft Technology’s 900 MHz Industrial Frequency Hopping Ethernet radios. One was installed on each of the three carts, with one at the Master PLC.

Eric Lockman, a Wireless Support Engineer from ProSoft Technology, received a call on Nov. 4 and performed onsite support only a few days later. Lockman had the ProSoft Technology Frequency Hopping Ethernet radios performing the job in a mere four hours.

Once Lockman arrived, he performed a site analysis and installed three ProSoft radios. A ping test showed there was connectivity all the way around the track, as Lockman and the SkySurfer crew sent the carts off along the course. Lockman had received satellite views of the area a few days before.

“There was full signal all the way around,” Lockman said. And that was with only a small gain antenna. “Even with the small gain antenna, it did well.”

Story bought the radios from the distributor, SMC Electric, that day.

Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s Wireless Solutions  here. 

By Lauren Robeson

ARC Resources is a major oil and gas company centered on four areas across Western Canada. In such a large operation, efficiency is key.

The company was looking to minimize cabinet space and streamline its operations. On a multi-well pad site in Dawson Creek, British Columbia, they had a Rockwell Automation® ControlLogix® system with standalone flow computers that were used to meter natural gas. The flow computers were only able to handle 8 meter runs apiece, however, which wasn’t optimal for such a large operation that had its sights on future expansion. The company also found it was difficult to get meter data from the standalone units into their ControlLogix system. For real-time information and control of their equipment, that integration needed to be seamless.

In ProSoft Technology’s Enhanced Flow Computer, ARC Resources found a solution that would allow the company to minimize space and left room for expansion in the future.

By the end of the project, the company saw a variety of benefits, including:

• Reduced wiring
• Data integration
• Fewer flow computers
• No licensing fees
• Smaller cabinet

ProSoft’s team and Rockwell Automation’s Calgary sales group, working with Rexel Westburne (the local distributor), helped the company see the benefits of this simplified setup.

 “ProSoft’s in-chassis flow computers fit right into their controller, which has helped streamline data integration and reduced their wiring,” said Scott Monton, Regional Sales Manager at ProSoft.

This streamlined setup has also enabled the company to make better use of its cabinet space.

And those limited meter runs? No longer an issue.

“With this solution, we’re now able to do 16 meter runs per flow computer, limiting the number of units we need,” said Charlie Kettner, Programming Specialist at ARC Resources. “We also like that the system can be expanded later if we need more meter runs.”

With the decreased number of units and their placement in the PAC, the company has been able to reduce wiring and labor costs, and use a smaller cabinet – all of which has helped ARC Resources lower its overall system cost, which was a major goal. Licensing costs have also been eliminated with the addition of ProSoft’s solution, since they will no longer need separate licenses for gas and liquid metering.

With this streamlined setup, ARC Resources is able to optimize their space and resources, and receive important data even more quickly.

Find out more about ProSoft Technology’s solutions for the Oil and Gas industry here.

A while back, a manufacturer of color picture tubes (CPTs) installed a new barcode tracking system in its India facility.

Using Rockwell Automation’s ControlLogix® platform and ProSoft Technology’s interface modules, the new tracking system allows better monitoring of the entire manufacturing process.

The company’s facility has a production capacity for manufacturing 3.2 million CPTs per year. Line one in the facility manufactures 21” and 20” CPTs. Line two is dedicated to manufacturing 14” CPTs.

In order to raise their market share to 50% in the next three years, the CEO wanted the company to have “more efficient capacity utilization and greater manufacturing efficiencies. Our mantra for success is to stay ahead of the competition using differentiation in products and services...We have taken many technological initiatives in order to improve our CPT market share.”

One of the ways the company found to help them improve their market share and increase the quality of their products was the implementation of a barcode tracking system in their facility.

The plant was already equipped with the Rockwell Automation® ControlLogix platform containing a 1756-ADN card. The company installed over 100 barcode scanners communicating via the RS-485 network. ProSoft Technology’s ASCII communication modules were added to connect the ControlLogix system to the barcode scanners.

“Since the barcode scanners are ASCII devices, an interface was needed to allow the data collected by the scanners to be transmitted over an RS-485 network to the ControlLogix system,” said the ProSoft Regional Sales Manager who worked on the application. “The ProSoft modules were installed (a maximum of 15 scanners per module), allowing the scanners to communicate over the backplane to the DeviceNet Adapter.”

“A ‘C’ application in the ProSoft module polls all of the scanners, reads the barcode ID and, using direct I/O instructions, writes to the ControlLogix PLC,” said the application’s Project Implementation Manager. “The data collected via the barcode IDs is presented as Crystal reports to the Main Server using an Oracle database. This information has helped the company achieve better monitoring of the manufacturing process, which translates into better-quality products.”

Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s Modbus solutions here.

Editor’s note: Remember Y2K and how everyone was worried that the systems would go haywire when presented with a year that ended with “00”? Us too. It’s easy to see it as a joke now but there were some real concerns about it in the late 1990s - understandably! Luckily, everything went OK. We’re all about having your systems prepared for whatever may come, though, which is just what this city did. Read our original case study for an interesting throwback!

Y2K. We’re all aware of it, but do we really know what it could mean to our daily lives? According to Bob Bennett, Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Y2K, there doesn’t seem to be anyone who can fully answer that question.

“I can’t tell you, are we going to be all right?” said Bennett at a Y2K Task Force Public Forum. “I haven’t got any idea. I can make some guesses and they may be educated guesses, but until the whole system really goes through this there’s no way really to test it in advance. Everything is so interconnected. The power grid is going to work. Of course the power grid is going to work. That’s based on the assumption that the telephones will work. And the telephone system is going to work, and that’s based on the assumption that the power grid is up. And so on, all the way through."
 

John Hamre, Deputy Secretary of Defense, agrees.

“The Y2K problem is the electronic equivalent of El Niño, and there will be nasty surprises around the globe,” Hamre said.
 

Amazingly, it seems that industrial automation is more sensitive to incorrect dates than had been originally anticipated.

“At each one of our factories there are catastrophic problems,” said Ralph Szygenda, Chief Information Officer for General Motors, speaking with Fortune Magazine. “When we tested robotic devices for transition into the year 2000, for example, they just froze and stopped operating.”

The American Water Works Association released a survey. It found that many of our nation’s municipal water providers are not prepared for the year 2000. Another survey conducted by a national wastewater association found that only 35 percent of the survey’s respondents expected to complete Year 2000 repairs. During an American-Canadian meeting it was revealed that 10 percent of the large urban water suppliers in the U.S. will not be Y2K compliant when the millennium arrives.

We’ve all read the news concerning the computer glitch that happened during a Y2K test in Los Angeles. At the Hyperion Treatment Plant over 2,000 alarms were triggered in the first hour of the test. It took officials an hour and 15 minutes to realize that nearly 3 million gallons of raw sewage had spilled into a local park.

One northwest city has a different story to tell. Early last year they completed an analysis on the current pump station equipment relative to Y2K, and decided to replace their outdated system with a SCADA system connected to smart PLCs or RTUs.
 

The city’s senior software engineer in charge of embedded systems conducted a Y2K analysis on the pump station equipment and found problems in the software and hardware as well. He also reported that much of the field equipment was obsolete or unsupported.

Regulatory Requirements

 The city also needed to meet new regulatory requirements issued by the Department of Ecology. These regulations required that the current pump station network be able to quantify an overflow at any given permitted site. This was not possible with the older monitoring and data collection equipment in place at the time. When it was installed in the 1980s, data collection was expensive, forcing officials to limit data collection parameters to only minimal data necessary to perform the city’s current business and permit requirements..

Designing the New System

 The city decided that in order to meet both the regulatory requirements and avoid any potential for a Y2K incident, a new system was in order. Specifically, one that could provide more data from their field equipment and add intelligence to the remote sites to compute and log lift station flow rates and increase the accuracy of data during overflow events.

Systems Interface Inc. and Rockwell Automation® teamed up and designed just such a system.
 

“The customer preferred a nationally recognized, name-brand solution with local distribution and required Modbus® protocol,” said the municipal business manager for Systems Interface. “The solution had to be PLC-compatible and the customer preferred the Allen-Bradley® hardware, yet A-B couldn’t accommodate the need for Modbus.”

ProSoft Steps In 

“That’s where ProSoft Technology stepped in,” said Doug Sharratt, President and Lead Developer for ProSoft. “A large number of SCADA projects in the Oil and Gas and Water and Wastewater industries have been specified with the Modbus protocol. ProSoft’s processor, developed jointly by ProSoft Technology and Allen-Bradley, is aimed specifically at these opportunities. It is an Allen-Bradley SLC 5/03 processor that has been modified to include the Modbus Slave protocol.”

Once the Modbus protocol is activated, a Modbus host can read and write data from all the common Modbus data types. In addition, support has been provided for the transfer of Floating Point data. A host can also access the processor Status File S2 to remotely monitor the health of the unit or do such things as setting the real time clock.
 

“The city couldn’t compute station flow rates, including overflow events, with the past system,” said Systems Interface’s municipal business manager. “Now they can track the well level and integrate it over time to accurately compute and log well inflow, outflow, and how much overflow has occurred.”

More Control, More Information

The new telemetry system consists of a hot backup, redundant, dual processor headquarter master station talking to 72 RTUs at each of the city’s sewer pump stations. 

“ProSoft’s Modbus Communication Modules function independent of the PLC, sharing the task of communications and allowing the processor module to concentrate on control and data functions,” said a Systems Interface project manager.
 

The RTUs monitor the pump station activities and control the operation of the sewage removal equipment, which consists of either pumps or air compressors. The headquarter master polls each RTU via a modem connection, and staff at the headquarters monitor the status and alarms in order to track pertinent data and be able to respond to emergency situations. This is far different from the previous system, which couldn’t track or control any station flow rates. 
 

The new SCADA system, scheduled for completion in late October 1999, will change all of that.
 

Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s solutions for Rockwell Automation platforms here.

If you listen you can hear warblers and flycatchers in the undeveloped wilderness of northern Ontario. As your ears become attuned to the solitude of this beautiful area of Canada, you will also hear another sound…rushing water, in the local power generating station.

The station is a 250MW hydropower facility that provides power to northern Ontario. A while back, the power utility approached AVAD Industrial Sales for help in upgrading their SCADA system. The old GE Harris system, communicating to a remote (Ranger 10) control room, was very limited in its capabilities. It could not track alarms and give operators the information required to run the new generators. AVAD Industrial proposed implementing a Schneider Electric® Quantum™ controller that was easily able to monitor all the points of the system and log data to the Vijeo HMI. However, in order to communicate with the new generators via the DNP 3.0 protocol, the Quantum controller needed a cost-effective connectivity option.

ProSoft Technology developed an in-rack module allowing the Quantum controller direct connectivity to the DNP3 network.

“ProSoft’s protocol module for the Quantum processor was the only in-rack solution available,” said a representative from AVAD Industrial.  “It was this type of quality solution that helped eliminate the need for a third-party ‘black box’ converter, thus eliminating a potential point of failure. It also allowed AVAD to provide local service and support for all of the equipment.”

With this new system, control operators receive all the information they need regardless of whether they are located on site or in the remote control room. As a result, the financial benefits will be represented in “Total Cost of Ownership.” The utility will no longer have to rely on outside assistance. This new system allows the plant to run more efficiently, and the maintenance crew can handle any issues should they arise.

“This solution has improved every aspect of the plant, i.e. functionality, speed, and convenience. We are looking at the possibility of converting three neighboring plants to this solution. This would standardize the facilities and make the ProSoft Technology interface module a very important part of the Canadian hydro electricity market,” said the AVAD Industrial representative. 

Learn more about ProSoft Technology solutions for Schneider Electric® platforms here.

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。

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/

Not every company knows how to take off their training wheels and ride into the streets of wireless industrial automation.

Shed the wheels of network cables and a company can potentially get more flexibility than ever before while moving data securely. Sure, industrial wireless security needs to be cost-effective and reliable. Buying the right modems and keeping up-to-date with the latest high-tech wizardry in wireless know-how can loosen the cables that bind applications and devices to costly networks. Nowadays, the idea of being wireless, secure, and cost-effective means companies can escape the thought of wiring across miles and miles of uncharted terrain. Just see what a Tennessee utilities board did when it wanted to move data through remote substations.

The company had to route data through thirteen substations, two of which were tucked away in the Cumberland Mountains. It knew laying ground wires in such an operation with remote locales would not be cheap. Wires would have to be installed over vast distances or laid locally. In order to access data, staff would have to visit hard-to-get areas. And who has that kind of time?

A while back, the end user had installed a SCADA system through Survalent Technology, then set up an Ethernet network using fiber optic cables transporting DNP 3.0 over TCP/IP to poll the RTUs in each substation. That was in 11 out of their 13 electrical distribution substations. The other two substations, given their locations in extremely isolated mountainous terrain, simply were not cost-effective when it came to fiber installation. Both remote substations are outage-prone, with the furthest an approximate one-hour drive through winding mountain roads. The board realized that there would be huge benefits if communications could be established to these two stations.

Surrounded by rugged terrain at two remote substations, the utilities board decided to improve data management by exploring various data-gathering methods. It researched options such as leased phone lines, licensed radio, unlicensed radio, and even satellite. After a thorough evaluation, the board concluded unlicensed radios offered a cost-effective, reliable, and secure solution. They opted for ProSoft Technology’s industrial-grade solutions.

The two Cumberland substations presented major obstacles in trying to obtain line of sight communications back to the end user’s main offices. ProSoft Technology’s technical support personnel helped develop a path study that identified locations along mountaintops where repeaters could obtain the desired path. The first repeater location posed no problem. The company had already set up a mountaintop radio repeater for licensed voice communications to company vehicles. The second repeater location made for a difficult challenge. The proposed remote mountain site was located using a GPS unit. Inaccessible to any ordinary vehicle, the end user hired a local grading contractor to transport a 60-foot wood pole to the site to install using a bulldozer. ProSoft Technology used a solar repeater kit and necessary antennas to complete the project.

ProSoft installed Frequency Hopping Ethernet radios with serial servers in both substations.

“We are pleased with ProSoft Technology’s wireless equipment. Instead of having to install separate networks, we have been able to build a single wireless network to meet the needs of our Ethernet equipment, as well as our serial equipment,” a representative of the utilities board said.

He noted that the utility has “been able to save numerous man-hours by being able to remotely monitor and control devices that normally would take us hours just to get to.”

In the first substation, one radio monitors station-loading from a Schlumberger Q1000 meter using the DNP 3.0 protocol. The meter has an RS-232 connection to the radio’s serial port, and is directly polled from the SCADA master station using the IP address and port of the radio. The old feeder breakers in this station have been replaced with new Cooper VSA breakers and Form 6 controls, which provide Ethernet connectivity. The new electronic controls are connected to the ProSoft Technology radio through an additional Ruggedcom Ethernet switch, thus prohibiting the need to ever install an RTU in this station.

The second substation has a Schlumberger Q1000 meter connected to the serial port of the radio, while a Cooper Form 6 control connects to the Ethernet port of the radio. Both are polled using DNP 3.0 over TCP/IP directly from the SCADA master station. Future planning will upgrade the regulator controls within the station to Beckwith M2001C controls that also have available Ethernet ports and use DNP 3.0. An additional Ethernet switch or hub is needed, although only requiring a single radio and no RTU.

The end user has begun the second phase of its SCADA system installation: communications with pole top devices (i.e. reclosers, regulator controls, automated switch controls, capacitor controls) located on distribution lines. The primary method for communicating to these devices will be with ProSoft Technology’s radios. Currently ProSoft’s radios have successfully connected to and are communicating with Cooper Form 4C recloser controls, Cooper Form 6 recloser controls, and S&C Model 5801 automated switch controls. The only protocol available for the Cooper Form 4C control is Cooper 2179, which is not available on the SCADA master. The communications path to these Form 4C controls comes off of a comm port on a substation RTU, hits a serial radio, then hits the same repeaters that are used for substation communications, finally ending up at a serial radio connected to the control.

The end user plans to connect to approximately 10-15 additional Cooper recloser controls, both Form 4C’s and Form 6’s. The 4C’s will be connected to a serial radio and polled from an RTU, whereas the Form 6’s will be connected to a Ethernet radio and polled directly from the SCADA master. There are plans to upgrade 15-20 regulator controls with Beckwith M2001C controls that provide Ethernet connectivity and are polled directly from the SCADA master. Because S&C automated switch controls only have serial ports available, plans to install additional controls require Ethernet radios with an embedded serial server. Connectivity through the required radios allows the controls to be polled using DNP 3.0 over TCP/IP directly from the SCADA master, without the need of an RTU. There are also plans to use ProSoft Technology radios for communications to capacitor controls for the purpose of power factor correction.

The utility appreciates the ability to use the same radio network, and therefore the same set of repeaters, no matter which type of radio (serial, Ethernet, Ethernet with embedded serial server) that they need to install. The company originally installed 23 radios, which they hope to double within the next 6 months. With such robust integration in their remote networks, any installed radio can then become a repeater for future radios.

Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s Wireless Solutions here. 

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

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. 

科克雷尔牧场油田注水项目是一个耗资巨大旨在提高石油产量的项目, 它坐落于美国德克萨斯州的潘汉德尔。卡努石油公司成功地利用高新技术从一度曾被认为“已被挖空”的油井里重新获得了石油，在开采过程中利用高压水的水流的流动形成的力量推动原油从油井出地面。

位于得克萨斯州的Boss Automation of Spearman公司被邀请到设计和安装卡努石油的分散自动化平台和控制网络以便监视流向油井的高压水的流量与压力。

以他们在自动化方面的经验, 该项目需要对以往传统的SCADA系统进行改进，从而能设计和实施一整套的新型的、具有全自动化自我监测功能的数据采集与监视控制系统的新型SCADA。

这个系统需要去采集、组合、传送那些油井和注射器等现场的数据，最后，再将这些数据传送到主站。 这就使我们可以用互联网来监视和控制那些生产现场的日常操作，同时也可以利用那些采集上来的数据来做出详细的生产模型。

经过全面地分析考量这个项目，得出的结论是：它必须要包含可靠性高、可维护性优良、简单易用，另外，这个系统能否在当地获得支持也很重要。

后来在Rexel的帮助下（Rexel是当地的一家AB的分销商），Boss Automation of Spearman 公司决定用一个由AB的硬件、罗克韦尔自动化的软件、ProSoft无线通信技术组成的解决方案来吸引人们的目光。

Boss Automation of Spearman 公司对这些自动化产品与软件非常熟悉，同时也有以往成功的应用经验，使得他们对这个组合解决方案非常地有信心。

这个SCADA系统由一个在主站上的带着4个ControlLogix子站和超过100个定制的远程终端单元（RTU）组成的，其中每个RTU又由一个罗克韦尔的MicroLogix1100 PLC和一个ProSoft工业热点电台组成。主站和4个子站象征着项目的网络主干路。

同时，4个子站中的每一个子站在它们各自的子网络中都还扮演着“主站”的角色。所有油井、注射器到各个子站以及所有子站到主站的通讯都采用了ProSoft Technology无线解决方案来完成。

保罗.布鲁克斯，罗克韦尔自动化网络系列产品的商务经理这样说道，“为了这个案例应用，ProSoft的无线技术部为该系统集成提供了一个通讯主干网络，它是一个可靠的、工业级别的、透明的网络，从而使卡努石油公司成功地对工艺数据进行远程监控。

在主站上，使用罗克韦尔自动化公司的RSView 32软件，可以将人机界面（HMI）用于主站中的系统。配套的图形界面软件也已经被验证为具有用户友好界面、且具有信息信件使能功能的成功软件，它可以自主随时地通过拨打操作人员手机以语音方式给操作员汇报详细的报警信息。

基于ProSoft技术的RadioLinx OPC服务被用在远程处理计算机上去监视无线网络的通信状态。

一个令人印象深刻的数字是：超过3500个离散型输入/输出型数据和1000个模拟量数据点被打包在一起并通过无线网络以大约11Mbps的速度传送到网络中主要的主站中，在那里数据包组装成数据日志模型，然后这些数据日志模型由卡努石油特有的经过授权的模型软件来解析、存储。

 Rexel为这个项目提供了后勤保障与技术支持，而为了慎重对待这个耗时长、规模大的无线网络的建设，ProSoft Technology公司在整个项目的建设与实施中自始至终提供了成功的工程支持。

帕特里克Haga，ProSoft Technology公司的无线技术工程师这样评论道：“从这个项目的技术层面来讲这是一个成功的项目实施案例，主要的理由就是在实际实施项目之前我们做了大量的规划以及对这个项目的慎重对待。

我和 BossAutomation of Spearman 公司的控制工程师们花了大量的时间去学习怎样利用 ProSoft 公司的 Pathloss 软件，在项目进行安装之前以及整个实施过程中，我们合作地非常紧密，而且合作的领域很广，不光在网络结构的布局上，还包括PLC的报文传送的策略上。

“项目的整个网络覆盖在大约12平方英里的地理范围里其中最长的数据链路大约有2英里。还有就是，大部分的电台都被放在一个大约只有3平方英里的区域里面，这就会引起一个焦虑，那就是“如何在这种规模的大密度的无线网络里，设置 PLC 的信息报文通讯方式将显地特别重要。” 帕特里克Haga这样说道。“如果所有的电台都设法同时去通讯，你就会很快因为射频带宽碰撞和重试从而增加网络带宽的负载压力，最后会使整个网络瘫痪掉。”

帕特里克Haga继续说道，“考虑这一点，利用 ProSoft 电台具有 IGMP 功能的特性，我们建立一个采用令牌类型模式通讯的网络结构而不是所有的电台都试图在同一时间进行通讯。在成功地安装这样规模的无线网络之前需要进行大量的规划设计，最后，ProSoft公司的技术支持小组提供了非常好的规划帮助。

Boss Automation of Spearman 公司的克里斯. 迪肯评价时这样说，“这个处理过程是非常可靠的、持续的，本质上是一个自主管理运行的计算机站点。从主要的 SCADA 监测站里，操作人员能看到油井的虚拟示意图以及油井里面正在执行的操作，此外，还能看到远程终端和控制单元采集与发送的数据。

该项目投入运行于2008年的春天，从那以后到现在接近生产零停机时间。“无线网络无缝地、可靠地工作，因此它实际是透明的对于用户来讲。” 迪肯阐述道。“当所有的规划与计划都完美实现之后，我问那些客户喜不喜欢无线网络时，他们的回答却是：无线网络是什么？”

ARC咨询集团的哈里.福部斯说道，“科克雷尔牧场油田注水项目说明了3个关于工业无线网络的重点：

第一，无线网络对于象科克雷尔牧场油田注水此类的 SCADA 项目来讲是必不可少的。

第二，最终客户需要选择可靠的、工业级别的、经过现场实际验证的产品，来提供一个长期稳定的无线解决方案。

第三，经过精心设计好的无线网络能以高可靠性、高速地在SCADA系统中传送数据。事实上，正是因为这高可靠性、高速性，使得最终客户几乎忘记了无线网络的在。”

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/

在美国阿拉玛州马拉卡的盖斯泰普工厂里，几乎所有的设备都是体积巨大的。地面是巨大的混凝土板，突兀的站立在地面之上的是两个重达2000吨以上的巨人，两台巨型压力冲压机床。为了适应这两台巨大的“野兽”，天花板被高高地了吊起来，屋子里灯光暗淡。在这个空旷的房间里，除了金属之间猛烈地撞击声，你几乎听不到其他任何的声响。

然后是一片寂静。。。。

“好吧，给你们的太太打电话吧，告诉她们今天我们又要回家很晚了了，为了让这些该死的“怪物”从新再工作起来，我们不得不多花些时间陪伴他们了”维护保养组的组长麦克悻悻地对他的组员说道，“这简直是在折磨我们。”

这已经不是第一次发生这样的事情了。盖斯泰普工厂内运转着170多台各种功能的冲钻设备，但是这两台“大个子“却经常会出一点“小毛病”，至少每个季度通讯电缆都会脱落一次，而每次发生这种情况都会造成整个工厂停工2个小时以上。

 检修记录

盖斯泰普是一家总部设在西班牙的全球性的汽车零部件供应商，他们在全球17个国家设有工厂。使用他们产品的多是行业内的巨头，高端客户有，奔驰，保时捷，宾利，宝马等，而福特，日产，通用则也在更大量的使用他们的产品。而这家马卡拉的工厂所生产出的产品大部分是用来供给阿拉玛州的奔驰车厂的。他们每小时要利用这两个“巨兽“制造出1800个部件，但是让所有人绝望的是，两台设备由于控制电缆经常性的损坏和脱落，造成了大量的停机时间。

“我们现在使用的是每英尺57美金的同轴电缆，而每次停机我们都要更换掉165英尺的电缆”，厂里抱怨道。

如果不计停产所造成的损失，单单更换电缆每次就要有9400-9500美金的费用。如果计算停产的损失每个小时大约是2500美金，幸运的话2个小时可以修理完毕，每次出现这种问题就会给厂里造成约14500美金的损失。

比这更遭的是，这种事每两三个月就要发生一次。

实际问题

这两台“巨兽”的工作原理并不复杂，只是，滑轨上的底座带动模具，不停的冲压出需要零件来。但是最大的问题在于，由于冲床不停的水平移动，会同时带动连接的电缆移动，这样电缆会不可避免地经常地被卷进底座与滑轨的空隙，继而卡短电缆，造成停机。

无论如何盖斯泰普都需要一个稳定工作的网络。他们已经受够了没完没了的停工。但是，如果使用无线解决方案，是否真的可以带来一个通讯性能良好，工作稳定的网络么？要知道现场唯一可以合适安放电台的地方就是滑轨的底部。

用厂里人自己的话说“我们是在寻找一种可以穿透10英寸钢板的无线电台”。

解决方案

既然工厂已经下定决心寻找一种可以穿透钢板的电台来替代电缆的话，当地罗克韦尔自动化的分销商为他们推荐了每台冲床使用3个由ProSoft 公司提供的 RLX-IFHE 的跳频电台配合现场应经存在的罗克韦尔的 Contrologix ,一起解决这个难题。

ProSoft 专业的无线产品经理凯文解释道：“由于滑轨底部和控制冲床的 PLC 之间有遮挡存在，所以需要通过中间加放中继来解决这个问题。而这个应用是在一个封闭的环境内，如果使用普通的电台产品，加装中继器，电台发出的无线信号，经过墙壁等遮挡物的反射之后，会在不同的时间到达另一个接受电台，这样经过多重的反射之后，会不可避免地带来多径干扰，降低系统的稳定可靠性。

但是如果使用了跳频的电台，电台的带宽频点无时无刻的都在随机的跳变，接收方在同一个时间内，只接受和发射方跳频图谱相同的信号，而会忽视其他不相关的信号，这样最大限度上的避免了诸如 802.11这样的设备会带来的多径干扰的问题。

 ProSoft 的跳频电台的通讯速率达到了 1.1Mbps ，又几乎可以媲美普通的 802.11 的电台产品，这样又不会影响这个系统的通讯速度。

优良表现

如今厂里的工程师都说“我们找到了一种天才的解决方案，原来我们担心的遮挡问题都被打消了，似乎这个电台可以隔着巨大的钢板去的读取各种控制数据，而通讯稳定且快捷。无论现场的条件如何苛刻，只要我们选择正确的技术，并且正确的运用它，一切难题都是可以得到解决的”。

盖斯特普做了一个评估，在这个马卡拉的工厂中，通过  ProSoft 产品的帮助，每年可以为他们节约174000美金的额外开支。

“现在我们都为你们无线产品的表现感到骄傲，我可以按时回家陪我妻子了，我很高兴。“当这套系统正常运行两年后，我们的维护组长麦克开心的说。

其实类似的问题在各种工厂和车间内都会存在，ProSoft -Technology 的工程师，希望借助我们在国内外的众多成功案例中汲取的宝贵经验，和您一起找到合理的解决办法。

Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s Wireless Solutions here. 

Automatic cranes improve productivity

A leading manufacturer of aluminum cable products operates a production line with four cable presses at a site in Australia. However, to increase capacity, the finishing stations and warehousing areas had to be restructured.

The peak performances of the presses were to be better buffered and the supply and output from the press lines and the warehousing areas was to become more efficient. It was also essential to achieve consistent loading of the workstations and optimized handling of baskets and bulk packaging.

All this mandated a powerful logistic base to transport the profile baskets and profile packs. In addition, the complete material transport of a wide variety of packing - in other words, handling of baskets and bulk packaging, which was formerly done conventionally with forklifts - is achieved with a system consisting of two automatic cranes.

The aluminum company decided on this solution not only to improve its ability to buffer the peak performances of the presses, but also to achieve a degree of redundancy that would provide better security against failure. Both the cranes needed to be able to operate over a distance of approximately 220 meters at two levels and carry out completely independent transport movements over the full length of the system. Two levels are essential because both cranes have to be driven independently over the full distance, and also have to perform lifting and turning movements.

Wireless technology provides the solution

It was important to the company to entrust the solution to this problem to experienced suppliers. Vollert was accordingly appointed prime contractor. Aberle Automation, for many years a supplier of control systems and a partner for Vollert, the system builder, was entrusted with the complete control system.

Both companies have considerable experience in the logistics and intra-logistics field, and this project was not by any means unexplored territory for either of them. However, using wireless communication to solve the problem was new to them. In the former systems, photo data sensors had been installed, and these could now no longer be used over a distance of 220 meters.

Aberle worked out, based on its established knowledge of material handling and turnkey logistic systems, a sophisticated automation solution. This was achieved in close collaboration with NemaSystems, a renowned Rockwell Automation® solution provider. NemaSystems delivered all Rockwell Automation and ProSoft Technology products, and was also jointly responsible for choosing the right control concept. The Württemberg-based company provided consultancy and support in selecting and configuring the control system components, and was also available as support and backup during the commissioning.

The automation solution could not have been completed without the active contribution by Rockwell Automation, as the manufacturer of a suitable control platform, and by ProSoft Technology, as the supplier of the necessary wireless products and on-site support in Australia. The core element of the solution is a Rockwell Automation ControlLogix® system with EtherNet/IP™ as the control network. A principal reason for choosing the Logix control platform was that the end user was already using Logix control systems from Rockwell Automation. Aberle had also already developed a software standard for similar crane systems based on Logix, which facilitated a secure integration.

The challenge in the new project was now the coupling of the decentralized peripherals moving in parallel on the cranes. A line-of-sight radio path covering the entire movement route of approximately 220 meters for both cranes, moving independently of one another, was absolutely essential. A technical solution other than driving the peripherals in parallel was impossible, because the drives and the corresponding I/O modules had to sit directly on the crane. Given these restrictions, the decentralized I/O modules and motor-drives frequency converters were coupled over EtherNet/IP with Industrial Hotspots from ProSoft Technology. The end user was already using various wireless systems but, in the crane systems area, the aluminum manufacturer decided on standardization with ProSoft Technology modules. In the beginning, there were still communication faults while transporting the profile baskets and profile packs as a result of reflections and other wireless networks that were set up on the same channels. Nonetheless, this problem could be rectified by ProSoft Technology directly on site.

Certainly there are similar systems fitted with wireless Ethernet across the world, but the project was still a challenge: The high update rate required and communication security for controlling the drives and I/O modules by means of EtherNet/IP was not guaranteed to be without problems.

Future-proof and effective

Using EtherNet/IP as a control network is undoubtedly also a feature of the automation solution, as is control of the I/O modules and drives over wireless LAN. This is how a comprehensive network was created, from the management level to decentralized I/O module and drive. The expenditure for installing this control network appeared relatively small, given the fact that the alternative offered was a considerably more complicated solution using leaky cable technology.

Of course, the correct antenna positioning and dimensioning demanded a certain amount of experience, but this was not, in the final analysis, one of the reasons for choosing ProSoft Technology. The ProSoft specialists ensured that the susceptibility to failure of the I/O modules and drives in this innovative crane system was no worse than in “normal,” cable-connected applications. Wireless transfer means that the crane modules and drives can be connected to the EtherNet/IP network, and accordingly the wiring and maintenance costs were minimized in comparison with conventional systems. WLAN transfer is reliable in operation, because communication monitoring is also intrinsic to the system. However, if faults should occur, then the system could be stopped immediately.

Savings arise compared with conventional systems, not only because of lower installation costs. Faster software design and IBN through the Ethernet network are also relevant cost factors. There is also simpler and better remote maintenance, carried out by Aberle over a VPN connection. This connection allows, as a result of the use of Ethernet as the control network, access to the drives and the decentralized I/O modules. The highly integrated control architecture is rounded off by viewing the system via a PanelView™ terminal with FactoryTalk® View for ME, which is also integrated with the Ethernet network. FT View's viewing gives a very good overview of the expanded system and provides the necessary tools to respond to any system faults in near-real time.

Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s wireless solutions here. 

在美国加州中部的圣华金，富饶的土地生产了全美国12%的农作物，但也恰巧是加州最大的产油区。这些地域宽广的不同行业都聚集在Bakersfield以外的南贝尔里奇区域，这里你可以看到油井遍布于农牧场之中。也就是在这里PXP公司将其蒸汽计量和数据采集变成了一个高度复杂的自动过程控制系统，其核心部分是一个庞大的无线HART变送器和工业直扩电台网络.

项目概述

PXP公司的Hopkins 油田就位于南贝尔里奇地区，其在大约2.5平方公里的地域内分布有200个油井。作为一个强化生产项目，连续蒸汽喷射器对于油井的产油量有着至关重要的作用。在每个产油井的周围，蒸汽会被注射到地下的藏油层以促使石油集中流向产油井。

在项目实施初期，每个喷射器都配有一个图表记录仪来计量并记录蒸汽量。为了跟踪采集这些数据，工人们必须每天都要去大概120个喷射器安装点来查看流量情况，实时记录，并手动计算流速。这些数据接下来要记录在一个表格内，被送到Bakersfield办公室，最后输入到数据库内。

碰到的问题

这种流量监测方法是非常耗费人力的。这些记录仪每三个月需要重新校对一次，并且数值读取也无法非常准确。同时，也有人担心在工作交接或手动记录时可能会存在数据不一致的问题。最后，这个过程也耗费了操作员绝大多数的时间，但每天却也只能记录一个数据。如果井头出现了问题，PXP通常响应会很慢，也就拖延了解决问题的时间。

PXP的项目设施工程师把这种低效率操作方式当作了一次改进PXP运行方式的好机会。 在经过对设备的考察，分析以及和操作员的讨论后，他觉得可以做一个新的无线测量及监视系统，使用最新的科技来创造一个实时系统，这样就能给PXP带来很多益处。而无线系统的使用也让项目实施变得迅捷和经济。如果没有无线技术，就需要敷设独立的供电和通讯线缆，那会让这个改造项目变得耗时耗财。同时系统的维护也会因为这先电力和通讯电缆变得繁杂。

成功的解决方案

经过细致的沟通工作，PXP实施了一个非常先进的自动化系统来作为试点项目。他们在4个油井安装了10个Rosemount 3051S 无线HART压力传感器。每口井都安装了两个传送器来测量节流装置前后的上下游压力。对于双流管井，还要安装第三个下游压力传感器，而上游压力传感器可以共享。这些压力传感器通过其自身构建的网络将数据发送到Emerson 无线HART网关。网关将这些过程数据连同过程诊断及仪表诊断数据都转换为Modbus TCP/IP 数据。ProSoft Technology 802.11 工业直扩电台则把这些网关的数据传送到1英里外办公室内的工业计算机。也就是说这些工业电台组成了一个空中无线网络，把现场的数据点都送到了信息系统中。

在这个试点项目中，PXP邀请了一个独立的公司来计量所有的蒸汽流量以获得每个油井蒸汽流量的准确数据。通过对无线传送系统所获得的数据和数据记录仪的数据比较后，PXP发现前者平均比后者精确10倍！

项目设施工程师，Michael Fischback 评价说"我们非常惊讶于新技术带来的精确度能有如此大的提高。"对于油藏工程师来说， 不准确的数据通常意味着昂贵的维修费用。而过多的蒸汽注入量也会带来运营成本的提高。如果蒸汽量不足也意味着我们不能够最大的挤压地下石油。

在试点项目验收合格后，其良好的效果让PXP公司决定立刻在剩余的120个油井上安装类似的系统。最后，现场安装了总计249个 Rosemount 无线HART传感器，4个无线网关，安装了3个ProSoft Technology 工业电台来传送现场数据到办公室。在这里，数据被送往PXP内部网络的两个ProGauge Technologies 定制的网页软件包。其中一个可以让操作员登录并查看油井数据，打印报告，查阅报警。而另一个对历史数据进行统计分析，形成对现场工况的最佳重现。. 其提供了油井现场的视觉实时模拟，能给油藏工程师和操作员提供每个油井的实时数据，或历史数据，计算蒸汽注入量等诸多功能。同时也可以生成一个 .csv 文件并导入到PXP的报告系统中供公司其它部门来共享。

项目实施

整个项目实施的非常平稳，且迅速。

"安装 Emerson 压力传感器也就是把原有的机械压力表拆除换上新装置而已" Fischback如是描述， "而ProSoft 电台安装时也只是将其固定在背板上，整个安装花了不到一天的时间。"

Bob Karschnia, Emerson无线解决方案副总裁评价说 "上游石油公司通常只有非常有限的时间来解决碰到的问题。解决方案也要实施的越快越好。而使用 ProSoft Technology 解决方案和 Emerson 无线方案让项目实施变得异常简单。他们都具有直接的用户界面可以同时设置两个网络，也是高水平工程解决方案的产品，让用户能轻松的接受。"

Jim Weikert, ProSoft Technology无线产品战略市场经理也说, "许多专注企业级通讯的公司在开发产品时都寄希望于使用者都接受了系统的培训。但Emerson和  ProSoft 都有不同的认识。我们认为项目实施的自动化工程师可能应该是更专注于他们自身的领域 - 例如这里的上游油气 - 而他们可能并不是无线系统的专家。这给像Emerson和ProSoft这样的两家公司提供了专注于开发稳定性和操作便捷性产品及解决方案的机会。

这个系统的最大优点是其能让操作员及时发现现场问题并作出最快的反应，从而大大提高了生产效率。

受益 

在强化产油项目中，蒸汽的成本大概能占到总成本的40-65%， 同时也决定着产油量。有了新自动化无线过程和数据采集系统，PXP不仅取得了更高的生产效率，较低了成本，也能够提高产油量。在头几个月内，节约下来的成本已经超过了新系统的造价。之后的几年PXP能够获得更多的利润。而这来源于:

维护成本降低

Rosemount 的无线HART变送器已经在出厂前校对过，而Emerson建议在运行后每5年校对一次。相比较之前图表记录仪每3个月要进行一次校对，维护成本大大降低。

实时数据:改善响应时间，有利于迅速决策

办公室能够得到现场的实时数据，操作员可以监视油井当前的状态，也可以查询其它许多运行状况。实时报警触发系统可以让操作员快速了解油井的运行问题。而数据也被永久保存以方便日后做相应分析及判断。

效率提高

新系统能够让操作员在到达油田现场后的工作更加有针对性，而不像以前那样要跑遍所有120个油井，而无法确定究竟是那个出了问题。这就提高了工作效率。

利润来源于资源的精确布置

现在在Hopkins一年的蒸汽价格超过1千万美元。而有了新系统，PXP可以非常精确的分配蒸汽资源给油井来使用。

未来

Hopkins油田是PXP在中部山谷中一个有重要意义的资产，而他们的长远目标也是要使用类似的解决方案来改进生产环节。PXP也在考虑是否在其其它领域应用类似技术也会带来生产效率的提高。

"我们对现在的结果非常满意," Fischback评价说. "这让我们整个运行小组非常兴奋。使用新技术来提高生产效率确实是一个正确的方向。"

经过这次成功的试点项目，PXP将会在Hopkins油田的25个新油井中使用无线数据传输。

而对于Emerson 和 ProSoft Technology来说，这已经不是他们第一次在类似项目中的成功合作了。在新加坡也有相同的项目成功实施。

中国电台项目列表

1. 上海临江水厂。             RLX-FHS.              3个点的串口无线网络。中心是滤池车间内的MicroLogix 1500，远程两个点是在沉淀池上的两个刮泥机的MicroLogix 1000.电台网络为透明网络，内走DF1协议。
2. 上海吴淞水厂。             RLX-IH。              4个节点，主要是连接各个车间的本地以太网到办公室。
3. 苏州新宁水厂管网SCADA系统。         RLX-FHS。          超过10个节点的无线网络，距离最远到8公里。无线网络用来将分布于各处的供水管网的测压点压力数据通过Modbus协议上传给水厂控制中心。网络使用了一个10层楼高的中继站来提高覆盖范围
4. 梅钢1号焦炉系统。    RLX-IH.                 12个电台。用于将焦炉四大车的数据上传到办公室。这个项目的特殊处在于中心站电台是由冗余的双电台组成。而每个双冗余中心电台分别连接两个远程站电台，来平衡网络负担。当某个中心站出问题时，远程站可以实现通讯切换。这个项目的背景是Datalinc电台不能满足EPC的要求。
5. 建阳电网保护系统。   RLX-FHS。          6个电台的网络。于S&C合作，将其自动电网断路装置无线连接到电力局控制中心实现远程控制。通讯协议为DNP。
6. 南通川崎船厂龙门吊控制通讯。          6104/6105 无线ProLinx。           和ABB合作（ABB提供龙门吊的所有控制系统）。一套无线DP的ProLinx6000产品把两个龙门吊的控制系统相连来交换数据。通讯的主要目的是当两个龙门吊联动时，交换控制和信息数据。
7. 南通川崎船厂龙门吊信息通讯。          RLX-IH。              4个电台的网络。一个中心站，一个中继站，和两个龙门吊上的两个电台。龙门吊电台通过中继电台将其数据发送给中心站（办公室）供公司内部网络使用。由于龙门吊在长约1公里的轨道上移动，处于远端的龙门吊可以在中继站或另个龙门吊上来漫游通讯。

Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s Wireless Solutions  here. 

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.