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AN ARCHITECTURE FOR E-AUTOMATION
E-AUTOMATION CAN BE USED TO PROVIDE A MORE FLEXIBLE AND INTEGRATED
STRUCTURE FOR CONTROL SYSTEMS THAN THE TRADITIONAL SCADA METHODOLOGY
by Q. H. Wu, D. P. Buse, P. Sun and J. Fitch

Q. H. Wu, D. P. Buse and P. Sun are with the Electrical Engineering and Electronics, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GJ, U.K.       J. Fitch is with Network Strategy, National Grid Company plc, National Grid House, Kirby Corner Road, Coventry CV4 8JY, U.K.       All correspondence concerning this paper should be addressed to Professor Q.H. Wu, Tel: +44 151 7944535, Fax: +44 151 7944540, E-mail: q.h.wu@liv.ac.uk

     A conventional automation system used for control of an industrial plant consists of sensors connected to the plant, data acquisition devices, interface racks, actuators, cables and wires for transmission of analogue quantities, microprocessor-based controllers and a platform for operator intervention. The controllers, required to operate online in real time, are usually connected to plant equipment through relatively short-length cables or optical fibres, designed to minimise signal distortion and interference and to maximise reliability. Therefore, the controllers are distributively installed in close proximity to the plant, and if there are a large number of items of plant that undertake a variety of tasks within different time scales then their controllers are generally unco-ordinated. For a complex industrial plant, centralised control schemes may be difficult to implement, due to the number of data acquisition devices and controllers involved, and the difficulty in connecting all of these items of equipment. For example, there may be 50 intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) of varying complexity at a large electricity substation and there are 250 substations in England and Wales. Due to the complexity of such industrial systems, a conventional automation system can only undertake simple tasks and is not capable of providing information management and high-level intelligent approaches, as achieving these functionalities requires the support of comprehensive data management and co-ordination between system devices. The concept of e-automation , in which computer networking and Internet technologies are applied to industrial automation systems is discussed, and a hardware and software architecture that implements this concept is presented. The objective of this architecture is to integrate the functions of information management, condition monitoring and real-time control.

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