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A New approach to Remote Monitoring |
04-01-2006 |
A new approach to Remote Control and Monitoring Controlstar® significantly reduces the cost of operating remote facilities or equipment, by using high levels of integration together with a new marketing approach that free issues the powerful system configuration software Controlstar® provides a completely integrated solution to remotely operating plant and facilities across a range of industries and commercial applications. The Controlstar® system is totally scaleable and can provide the functions and scope of large command and control systems; however its primary design goal is to provide the advantages of command and control technology to smaller organizations. Previously these smaller organizations could not justify the entry costs of the complex software and hardware together with the costs of integrating the final system with their operations. What’s different about our product? Well firstly, the Controlstar® has been designed as a fully integrated solution coupled with straightforward support tools that facilitate the development of complete systems; all the software and the support tools are included in the costs with the first Controlstar®. No more juggling with software licensing costs, and since each client is free to copy the software for their own use there are no hidden extras associated with expanding the use of the systems to other personnel. The system is fully scalable, and there are no thresholds above which licence costs become applicable. Secondly the support tools have been designed so that a person with computer literacy skills equivalent to handling Excel would be able to fully develop an application. This reduces the skill level to create a system; the control, communication, display, and indeed all the functional requirements of a command and control system are fully integrated in the free issued support tool. This removes the need for the multiple skills of PLC programmers, SCADA configuration, and even communication engineers. The support tools reduce the engineering costs, and combined with zero cost licensing the effect is to significantly ‘lower the bar’ of acquiring the technology, this bar had previously prevented organizations enjoying the commercial and quality advantages of remote monitoring and control. It is now economically feasible for a user to start with a single modest site or facility and then to develop the system incrementally as the need or opportunity arises. The Controlstar® system is composed of 5 integrated products, which combined provide a comprehensive solution for building and maintaining remote asset management systems. These products provide powerful user-friendly asset management solutions, with minimum engineering and support costs. 1. The core of the system is the `Fusion` configuration package, this free issue tool allows a single engineer to design and maintain a total asset management system. `Fusion` is a highly visual design tool, which uses a pick and place approach to create an integrated system for the Controlstar System products. 2. The Controlstar® unit is an autonomous site control unit; it supports a range of communication methods with the upper level SCADA systems. The Controlstar® has a powerful PLC function which is visually programmed using straightforward function blocks, uniquely the detailed operation of these function block control algorithms can be viewed online using the SCADA. The Controlstar® can also be equipped to take feeds from two CCTV still frame camera`s, the compressed images allow this capability to be used over low bandwidth communication links; the images are directly displayed in a SCADA window. The Controlstar® also supports a local SCADA either for intermittent connection (e.g. for maintenance) or a permanent MMI station. 3. The Micro-Controlstar is a solar powered unit; it is designed for small sites (down to monitoring a single measurement) as with the larger Controlstar® the Micro can operate using GSM, dial up circuits, or radio. For distributed sites where cabling is a problem, multiple Micro`s can operate locally over a `Zigbee` radio, with one unit acting as the master for long distant communications to the central office. The Micro can also act as a peripheral to the main Controlstar™, again using Zigbee. 4. The Aggregator/ Server provides the hub of a system; it is composed of a communications front end, and an embedded IBM `Cloudscape` Relational Data base, it acts as the server for our SCADA clients. 5. The Controlstar Systems SCADA, software provides all the standard facilities of a SCADA, it is a client to the Aggregator that can coexist on the same machine or be connected either directly over Ethernet or remotely over a dial up circuit. The Aggregator supports multiple SCADA`s over all methods of connection. |