A modern teaching environment for process automation

Emergence of the new technological trends such as Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture (OPC UA), Industrial Ethernet, cloud computing and the 5th wireless network (5G) enabled the implementation of Cyber-physical System (CPS) with flexible, configurable, scalable and interoperable business models. This provides new opportunities for the process automation systems. On the other hand, the constant urge of industries for cost and material efficient processes demands a new automation paradigm with the latest tools and technologies which should be taken into account while teaching future automation engineers. In this thesis, the modern teaching environment for process automation is designed, implemented and described. This work explains the connections, configurations and the test of three mini plants including the Multiple Heat Exchanger, the Three-tank system and the Mixing Tank. In addition, OPC UA communication between the server and its clients has been tested. The plants are a part of the state of the art of the architecture that provides the access of ABB 800xA to the cloud services via OPC UA over the 5G test wireless network. This new paradigm changes the old automation hierarchy and enables the cross layered communication in the old architecture. This modern teaching environment prepares the students for the future automation challenges with the latest tools and merges data analytics, cloud computing and wireless network studies with process automation. It also provides the unique chance of testing the future trends together in this unique process automation setup

Dynamic digital factories for agile supply chains: An architectural approach

Digital factories comprise a multi-layered integration of various activities along the factories and product lifecycles. A central aspect of a digital factory is that of enabling the product lifecycle stakeholders to collaborate through the use of software solutions. The digital factory thus expands outside the company boundaries and offers the opportunity to collaborate on business processes affecting the whole supply chain. This paper discusses an interoperability architecture for digital factories. To this end, it delves into the issue by analysing the key requirements for enabling a scalable factory architecture characterized by access to services, aggregation of data, and orchestration of production processes. Then, the paper revises the state-of-the-art w.r.t. these requirements and proposes an architectural framework conjugating features of both service-oriented and data-sharing architectures. The framework is exemplified through a case study

Foundation Fieldbus Interoperability Test, System Development and Configuration - Foxboro (Dissertation)

Fieldbus is a network technology designed to improve overall process or system efficiency in contrast to the current 4-20mA network. Verification of the system interoperability and reliability, including stress test is important for it to be accepted and applicable in the industry. A proper methodology justification and an outline of the methodological approach of the interoperability, reliability and stress test in order for it to be executed within the scope of study and given time frame are elaborated in this report. Segment design validation simulated using P+F Segement Checker with High Power Trunk (HPT) concept

Kenttäväylien hyödyntäminen sähkökäyttöjen parametroinnissa ja monitoroinnissa

Opinnäytetyön toimeksiantaja oli Valmet Automation Tampereella. Työn tarkoituksena oli tutustua sähkökäyttöjen hallintaohjelmistoihin sekä niiden hyödyntämiseen osana laajaa prosessiautomaatiojärjestelmää. Työn lähtökohtana oli ratkaisun toimivuus osana Valmet DNA –automaatiojärjestelemää sekä ohjelmiston käyttö ilman omaa erillistä kaapelointia kenttälaitteistolle. Työssä kerrotaan yleistä teoriaa prosessiautomaatiosta, markkinoilla olevista kenttälaitteiden hallintaohjelmista sekä sähkökäytöistä ja niiden ohjaamiseen käytetyistä ohjelmista. Työn loppuosa keskittyy löydetyn ratkaisun testaamiseen Valmetin työkaluilla. Lisäksi työhön kuului valmiin testaussuunnitelman teko. Johtopäätöksenä voidaan todeta, että tällä hetkellä Valmet DNA:n ohjaamia sähkökäyttöjä ei voida parametroida Valmetin omilla ohjelmilla, vaan se vaatii yhteistyötä käytönvalmistajien puolelta. Kuitenkin markkinoilla on laaja valikoima eri kenttälaitteita, jotka voidaan tutkittujen teknologiaratkaisujen pohjalta integroida osaksi Valmet-automaatiojärjestelmää. Sähkökäyttöjen tarjonta on kuitenkin laajaa, ja tulevaisuudessa tekniikka kehittyy.The purpose of the thesis was familiarize oneself with the electric drive management softwares and exploiting them as a part of larger process automation system. The starting point was the functionality of the software as a part of Valmet DNA automation system and software usage without separate cabling to field devices. The commissioner of the thesis was Valmet Automation company in Tampere. The thesis describes theory of process automation, information of available field device management softwares, knowledge of the drives and the programs which are used to control the drives. The end part of the thesis focuses on testing of the found solution with Valmet software tools. The thesis also includes making of the testing plan. It can be concluded that parametrization of the Valmet DNA controlled drives is not possible with Valmet`s own softwares at the moment. Drive controlling needs to be done in cooperation with the drive manufacturers. Howeever, markets are offering a wide range of different field devices which can be integrated to be part of Valmet auto-mation system. The range of the drives is wide and technology will develop in the future

Infrastruktur für den Online-Zugriff auf prozesstechnische Apparate ohne dedizierte Kommunikationsanschaltung

Der Betrieb von prozesstechnischen Produktionsanlagen wird stetig von verschiedenen Aufgaben begleitet, zum Beispiel der Steuerung und Optimierung der Produktion und der Aufrechterhaltung der Verfügbarkeit. Alle Gewerke, die sich mit dem Zustand der Anlage und des darin ablaufenden Prozesses beschäftigen, sind auf Daten angewiesen, die in der Anlage erfasst werden. Ein Großteil dieser Daten werden für die automatische Steuerungs-, Regelungs- und Sicherheitstechnik erfasst und darin in Echtzeit verarbeitet. Apparate und anderes Equipment sind zumeist nicht mit für deren Zustandsüberwachung dedizierter Messtechnik ausgestattet. Um Qualitätsmerkmale, Anlagenzustände oder Wartungsbedarfe erkennen zu können, müssen andere in der Anlage vorhandene Daten kombiniert und in Berechnungsmodellen kondensiert werden. Diese Methodik teilt sich in unterschiedliche Schritte auf: Datenakquise, Entwurf von Auswertemodellen, Modellintegration und Auswertung von Ergebnissen mit Ableitung von Aufgaben. Die vorliegende Arbeit ordnet sich in die Softwareaspekte dieser Methodik ein. Dabei versucht sie, die zentrale Frage „Wie könnte eine Infrastruktur auf Basis von verbreiteten Standardtechnologien aussehen, welche alle Schritte des Engineeringprozesses für freie Apparatemodelle automatisieren kann?“ anhand eines Vorschlags für eine Infrastruktur zu beantworten. Es wird eine Möglichkeit dargelegt, im Betrieb ohne Änderungen am bestehenden System kontinuierlich Daten für die Weiterverwendung in Apparatemodellen auszulesen. Der Entwurf und die Implementierung von Auswertemodellen wurde mit Hilfe eines entwickelten Werkzeugs unterstützt und dadurch die Struktur der Apparatemodelle vorgegeben, um eine einheitliche Modellintegration zu ermöglichen. Die Durchführung der Modellintegration erfolgte über die automatische Auswertung von Planungsdaten. Eine auf offenen Technologien basierende Ausführungsplattform für die Bewertungsmodelle wurde implementiert. Die Auswertung von Berechnungsergebnissen wurde über die Integration der Modelle in verbreitete, für Feldgeräte vorgesehene Standardwerkzeuge ermöglicht. Diese Infrastruktur ermöglicht es den verschiedenen Gewerken des Anlagenbetreibers, generische Bewertungsmodelle auf die Apparateinstanzen in der Anlage anzuwenden, und mit deren Berechnungsergebnissen ihre Aufgaben einfacher oder besser bearbeiten zu können. Nach einer Analyse der technischen Rahmenbedingungen wurde ein Konzept zur Modellintegration entwickelt und dessen Automatisierbarkeit diskutiert. Dieses Konzept wurde prototypisch umgesetzt. Es wurden Softwarekomponenten für den Betrieb sowie Softwarewerkzeuge für die Unterstützung sowohl der Erstellung als auch der Integration von Apparatemodellen entwickelt. Anhand dieser wurde Umsetzbarkeit des Konzepts überprüftOperating process plants goes along with different tasks, e. g. control and optimization of the production and maintaining availability of the plant. There are several subsections of operations who deal with the state of the plant and the processes it runs. They are all dependent on information which is gathered throughout the plant. Most of this data is acquired for the automatic control, regulation, and safety gear and is processed in real-time. Apparatuses and other equipment are usually not equipped with measurement devices which are dedicated to monitor their state. For being able to recognize specific quality attributes, states of the plant, or maintenance needs, the existing measurements have to be combined and condensed by calculations. This methodology can be split into the following steps: data acquisition, design of evaluation models, integration of these models, and assessment of findings including inferring actions. This thesis addresses software aspects of this methodology. It tries to answer the key question „How to build an infrastructure, which shall be based on common standard technologies, in which all steps to engineer equipment models may be automated?“ by proposing a concrete infrastructure. A technique has been designed to continuously acquire data for further processing in equipment models without any changes to existing systems. The process of design and implementation of equipment models has been supported by a purpose-built tool. This tool puts out the designed models in a uniform structure to allow uniform model integration. This integration has been automated using the plant’s engineering data. An execution platform has been developed based on open technologies. Infrastructure and model structure have been designed to easily integrate calculation results into standard tools for being able to use them in common work environments. It enables the different subsections of operations in a plant to apply generic equipment assessment models on concrete equipment instances. Using the output of the models, they shall be enabled to perform their task in an easier or better manner. The technical requirements and prerequisites have been analyzed. Using the resulting conclusions, a concept to integrate models has been developed and the options to automate it have been discussed. This concept has been implemented prototypically. This implementation includes a runtime component and two tools to support development of models and their instantiation. It has been used to prove the feasibility of the concept

Plant descriptions for engineering tool interoperability

The emergence and deployment of connected devices in many domains of application (e.g. industrial production, buildings and facilities, urban environment, etc.) have resulted in the need to achieve integration of multiple and more complex systems. This new environment is stressing the intrinsic limits imposed by monolithic standards, data models and integration methods that focus on specific domains of application, types of systems, or specific aspects of a system. This paper describes the Plant Description Service developed as part of the Arrowhead Interoperability framework (EU ECSEL funded project). The manuscript contains a description of the abstract system descriptive model based on which the Plant Description service was implemented, and describes how the service can be used to achieve integration of several industry standards and data models. Case studies are provided that illustrates how the service was practically implemented to support engineering scenarios in the domain of industrial production. The paper concludes with a critical review of the approach and suggestion for future work and developments

FOUNDATION FIELDBUS 1NTEROPERABILITY TESTING

This report is to discuss about the research and testing of Basic Interoperability Testing for Foundation Fieldbus system. The Foundation Fieldbus is the new protocol that used in the PETRONAS process plant. Since that, PETRONAS personnel get lack of training in handling this new system. Devices that used in Foundation Fieldbus system can not work or interoperate with the devices from different manufacturers. This project is to perform the interoperability testing and the result will be used as the reference for Foundation Ficldbus system for PETRONAS personnel that handling this new system. Besides, the purpose of this project is to find out interoperability devices with the manufacturers system. The methodology towards achieving the objectives includes the theoretical and technical research, and testing the system and devices. Research and understanding of the project is very important. Some procedure needs to follow to get the desired result and accuracy and consistency of the result need to take to the consideration. The specific system need to conduct for the basic interoperability testing is Honeywell system. The tasks that should be done under this Basic Interoperability Test are device commissioning, device decommissioning, online device replacement, physical layer diagnostics, calibration function checks, and online parameter downloads. From this test, all the devices that had been tested were successfully done. The research for the Foundation Ficldbus should continuously perform to improve the system from time to time and the analysis of result and reports will use for a future research