Industrial Networking

A good cellular automation solution based on TCP/IP networking provides anywhere/anytime connectivity and also offers security features that meet the most stringent requirements of industrial standards associations. Cellular automation is a cost-effective solution to customer problems, which integrating cellular data networking to enable SCADA data to be securely communicated from the networking back to the control center, thereby improving safety, productivity and profitability.

Today, most – if not all – remote sites contain legacy serial devices that need to be converted to IP-based services. Some of these devices require special treatment by the gateways they are attached to so that the serial interface can be properly converted to IP, but most solutions don’t offer that type of flexibility.

A cellular automation solution enables smart remote-connected sites by protecting RTUs, PLCs and other HMI equipment, while also making mission-critical data from variable frequency drives (VFDs), pumps, valves and motors securely available in near real time. This solution also eliminates costly visits to remote sites for minor software changes or failures. This translates into large savings for customers using cellular automation for remote support.

refer to:http://pipelineandgasjournal.com/using-cellular-automation-monitor-and-control-assets

Color machine vision has its challenges.
Systems can produce three times the data (or less than one-third the resolution) of a monochrome camera solution. Color can introduce more potential sources for imaging errors, more complexity, more cost, and require careful engineering that reduces the system’s flexibility to deal with lines that make products of varying shape, colors, and size. In fact, if designers can find a way to use filters and lighting to measure a colored area using monochrome cameras, they usually do.

As the information above shows, color machine vision solutions can require in-depth knowledge of the physics behind machine vision. The good news is that by choosing the right supplier and partner, designers can solve applications where success isn’t just black and white.

refer to:http://www.visiononline.org/vision-resources-details.cfm/vision-resources/Is-Your-Machine-Vision-System-Color-Blind/content_id/4333

The Situation: One of the world’s largest energy producerswith diverse operations across the globe employed remote well monitoring technology. This enabled project personnel to not only integrate and access information from the field to the desktop, but also integrate workflows across Automation, managerial and maintenance domains for consistent action.

Operational Benefits: Significant advantages included:

A single prioritized view of well operations
Real-time analysis capability for production data
Real-time feedback on well performance
Improved production and forecasting accuracy
Quick implementation as available out-of-the-box
Easily supportable and maintainable monitoring solution
Conformance and integration with corporate standards
But What Really Matters: This solution has facilitated better decision making, helping experts to take the right action at the right time to solve problems, take advantage of opportunities and improve well performance … but so what?

In this particular case, the bigger-picture business goal was time to first oil enabled by an out-of-the-box, customized solution. Even bigger than that, though, is that the refiner estimates a 4-to-6 percent production increase with real-time data monitoring and analysis.

Improvements in energy consumption

The Situation: A global industrial gas distribution companysought to manage production loads by taking advantage of variations in power prices between peak and non-peak times. It also wanted the capacity to respond quickly and according to customer product demands to reduce venting and top-up usage, as well as the ability to operate consistently at maximum and minimum load constraints. This company implemented two powerful Honeywell products powered by Matrikon, Operational Insight and Control Performance Monitor – the information infrastructure of which was tied together with Networking Appliance

refer to:
http://www.automation.com/business-transformation-through-remote-collaboration-optimization-and-operations

Resurgence of the Do It Yourself (DIY) community has driven a range of open networking platforms, giving aspiring technologists cheap and easy access to embedded development. Outside of hobbyist toys and educational devices, however, “hacker” boards are increasing performance and I/O flexibility, and have become viable options for professional product development.

The “maker” movements of the past few years quickly gained traction in the education and hobbyist markets, as organizations began producing open hardware boards with a “less-is-more” architecture at a price to match. DIY boards like the Arduino, BeagleBoard, and Raspberry Pi provide “known state” programming platforms that allow easy exploring for novice developers, and enough flexibility for advanced hackers to create some pretty remarkable things – which they have solutions.

refer to:

http://embedded-computing.com/articles/diy-pushes-open-hardware-kindergarten-kickstarter/

It is the author’s opinion that integration of the controls networking and the IT networking is inevitable. It became inevitable the moment the controls industry chose to use Ethernet as the medium with which to communicate data. The controls industry may choose to be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern communications era, or it can gracefully embrace the change. Embracing means the controls industry would be able to leverage the myriad rich, existing technologies that have been proven foolproof in the IT world. To be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern automation era would do a terrible injustice to those who have worked diligently to bring it about. This could quite possibly add an entirely new facet to the fieldbus wars, which I hope have not been forgotten.

With that said, the controls world is going to be moving with an industry that has a definite consumer bias, with product development and release cycles of six months or less. In an industry where the average life expectancy of an automotive production line is eight years, it is impossible to expect the networks in an industrial setting to keep up with modern IT standards. Therefore, we turn our attention to the technologies that have existed the longest, with the most open standards and the very best support. These are the protocols we wish to use and keep, and this article highlights and explains some of these technologies.

refer to:
http://www.automation.com/leveraging-it-technology-for-industrial-controls-applications