Control System World

Standard logic modules and programmable logic relay systems are a suitable solution when it comes to automating small applications with minimal effort. The devices are compact, easy to wire, and can be programmed with the Logic+ or nanoNavigator software without any special knowledge.

• Cost-effective – scalable switching or control devices tailor-made for your system
• Flexible and versatile – relay and logic modules can be replaced and adjusted
• Easy – fast and intuitive programming with the Logic+ and nanoNavigator software
• Space saving – standard logic modules as well as programmable logic relay systems feature a compact design

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Every company is dependent on some type of asset that keeps the business in business – be it a computer, a centrifuge, or a megawatt transformer. In a large enterprise, reducing costs related to asset maintenance, repair, and ultimate replacement is at the top of management concerns. Downtime in any network, manufacturing, or computer system ultimately results not only in high repair costs, but in customer dissatisfaction and lower potential sales. In response to these concerns, this paper presents a methodology for creating a real-time Condition-based Maintenance (CBM) solution with the OSIsoft PI System. It provides valuable guidelines for planning an enterprise system that monitors critical maintenance processes and assets. This paper provides answers to many high priority CBM questions including:

• What is condition-based maintenance and how can it benefit your company?
• How to plan, create, and deploy a real-time CBM solution for all of the assets in your enterprise.
• How to create a framework that captures asset data, characteristics, and performance, and reuses asset models can save time and maintenance costs
• Why on-demand, role-based visualizations of asset conditions are essential for effective condition assessment and decision-making.
• How accurate real-time data reduces down time of systems through timely awareness of asset condition from workflow and triggered notifications

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Red Lion Controls, the global experts in communication, monitoring and control for industrial automation and networking, today announced that it has expanded its Graphite™ Human Machine Interface (HMI) operator panels with two new communication modules, offering support for some of today’s most popular industrial protocols. Designed for use with the Graphite HMI platform, the PROFIBUS® (GMPBDP) and DeviceNet™ (GMDN) plug-in modules provide the connectivity customers need to add powerful monitoring and control functionality to their existing operations.

Red Lion’s new plug-and-play modules support the rising demand for device interoperability, allowing customers to leverage Red Lion’s rugged Graphite HMIs – with built-in protocol converter and 300+ communications drivers – to support virtually any automation equipment. The GMPBDP module adds PROFIBUS DP slave support while the GMDN module allows the HMI to perform as a DeviceNet Group 2 server.

“With the addition of new communication modules, our powerful HMI products continue to provide even more ways for our customers to easily connect, monitor and control processes across a broad range of industries,” explained Jeff Thornton, director of product management at Red Lion Controls. “The PROFIBUS and DeviceNet modules give customers more choices as they seek integrated communication solutions to address varying requirements in industrial and remote environments.”

Rockwell Software Pavilion8 Model Predictive Control (MPC) software now delivers a more user-friendly configuration environment, step-by-step prompts, warning diagnostics and flexible work flows to simplify building, maintaining and adjusting highly complex process models.

“Pavilion8 software has long been known as being among the most powerful software for solving highly challenging control problems, and it is now also among the easiest to use,” said Michael Tay, Pavilion product manager for Rockwell Automation. “The solution builder tools within the software now offer MPC configuration in a modern Windows environment, giving users a more familiar and streamlined experience. For example, users can now execute right-click mouse operations and complete copy-and-paste-type actions to develop applications in the software, helping them deploy their solutions faster and reduce training and adoption times.”

Pavilion8 MPC v5.0 software remains control system independent, but smoothly integrates with the PlantPAx process automation system from Rockwell Automation and includes four key enhancements.

Windows-based configuration and support – An improved overall user experience for expert and inexperienced users alike begins with the updated, Windows-based solution builder tools, which improve work flow by enabling users to create a customized working environment and providing access to online help. For example, problems that arise during configuration will now prompt helpful, context-sensitive warning and error messages. Users can simply click on these messages to receive detailed model-creation steps that will guide them toward a resolution. Users can also more easily modify past work to simplify model maintenance and re-use.

Multivariable run-time controller – Users will also discover new time-saving features in version 5.0. The robust run-time controller has been updated to allow users to add new predictive disturbance measures in half the time as the previous version, and easily compare differences in MPC application versions. Users now can easily sort, re-name, add, delete, compare and copy MPC variables and software supporting a flexible work flow, which can help reduce troubleshooting time. Output variables, such as powder moisture from an industrial dryer or reactor pressure in a vessel, can also be used as inputs to a nonlinear control model to help simplify deployment. Multiple developments that enhance integrating control models simplify and improve run-time performance.

Continuous controller monitoring – Users can now configure their process models with specific metrics for production, quality, energy usage and other factors. They can also continuously measure their processes according to these metrics and use historical records to track ongoing benefits. The software incorporates new data efficiencies to provide a faster and more responsive trend environment, particularly for those supporting larger and more demanding systems.

Supports modern browsers and operating systems – To make the Pavilion8 experience more consistent with other software environments and improve overall ease of use, Rockwell Automation re-designed the software’s user interface to align with current technology standards. This includes support for newer browsers like Internet Explorer 11 and operating systems, such as Windows 2012.

Pavilion8 software is the leading Rockwell Automation platform for MPC and real-time environmental management. It is also the first platform to combine empirical and first principle models into a single composite model. With proven return on investment when applied to a wide range of industries, continuous processes and equipment, Pavilion8 software uses an unrestrictive and robust configuration approach. This allows it to adapt to changing business needs and to flexibly meet simple linear to the most challenging nonlinear processes.

Emerson Process Management has introduced the CSI 3000 Machinery Health Monitor, a compact protection system for a wide range of machinery such as pumps, compressors, centrifuges, blowers, and generators. The CSI 3000 delivers protection data in situations where a standard rack-based system simply will not fit or is not a cost-effective approach. Easy assembly and user-friendly, customizable setup means the CSI 3000 has a short path out of the box to improving availability and ensuring safety of rotating assets.

The CSI 3000 measures shaft vibration, bearing vibration, position, speed and generates key signals. The system provides the user with alarm outputs for each channel and does not require additional signal converters for shaft vibration and displacement measurements.

“Emerson offers a complete line of protection monitors – from the rack-mounted CSI 6500 online monitoring system and the basic CSI 9360 Vibration/Position Transmitter, to the CSI 6300 SIS that guards against overspeed conditions,” said Björn Müller, Emerson’s product manager of online sensors. “This is another example of how we are delivering capabilities that bring stability to our user’s operations through services and technologies that reduce downtime and improve availability.”

AQUALGAE is a Spanish company specialized in integral solutions for microalgae production, including design and manufacture of photobioreactors, supply of microalgae strains and culture media. Microalgae play a key role in aquaculture, food and feed industry, and may prove to be outstanding for better biofuels, food and pharmaceuticals, and water/wastewater treatments.

AQUALGAE soon turned to InduSoft Web Studio to create flexible and robust SCADA/HMI systems that could grow with advancing technology in the increasingly important microalgae production industry.

With InduSoft Web Studio, AQUALGAE has been able to meet the shifting requirements of customers who require a robust and highly flexible SCADA/HMI system to control and monitor photobioreactor plants.

Microalgae are microscopic algae typically found in freshwater and marine systems. They have a very high photosynthetic efficiency and may be found in all habitats of our planet. Microalgae are the main primary producers and contribute to the major capture of CO2 from the atmosphere, with its concomitant O2 release. There is a tremendous biotechnology potential over microalgae still to be explored.

With climate change recognized as one of the top threats to our planet, microalgae may prove to be key for CO2 mitigation, creating biofuels, developing food and pharmaceuticals, and water/wastewater treatments. The vast array of products that can be produced through microalgae cultivation include everything from industrial applications to health and food supplements.

AQUALGAE is a company specialized in integral solutions for microalgae production, from small-scale labs to pilot-scale and large scale projects. The company designs, manufactures, and installs different type of photobioreactors, as well as offering microalgae starter cultures, culture media, and auxiliary equipment.

Due to the rapid growth in the industry, scalability is critical to new systems developed by AQUALGAE. When they discovered that their original SCADA software platform was not flexible enough to handle the growing demands of customers. AQUALGAE soon turned to InduSoft Web Studio to create flexible and robust SCADA/HMI systems that could scale easily with advancing technology.

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Yokogawa Electric Corporation announces the May 29 release of FAST/TOOLS® R10.02, the latest version of a web-based real-time operations management and visualization software package that brings revolutionary changes to real-time process information intelligence. This release is designed to significantly reduce engineering of large geographically dispersed systems, which requires both a different engineering approach and central managed deployment. The introduction of a master enterprise engineering database establishes a single engineering environment containing all common enterprise definitions and deployment data. This is easier to manage, less restrictive, and less complex than distributed databases.

Yokogawa has identified a rising need for the integration of the various disciplines and functions required for the delivery of human-centric information solutions utilizing new technologies such as industrial cloud computing, industrial SaaS, and the Industrial Internet of Things. In essence, the aim is to connect sensors, devices, and plant facilities to facilitate the remote access of data and enable supervisory control from just about anywhere. The FAST/TOOLS enterprise automation platform addresses these needs by offering comprehensive solutions for the deployment, operation, and monitoring of control system environments. This will help companies make faster decisions, reduce total cost of ownership (TCO), and achieve operational excellence.

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With the ACOPOS P3, B&R is setting new standards for motion control. This 3-axis servo drive offers a power density of 4 A per liter, making it one of the most efficient servo drives with integrated safety functions on the market. It also provides previously unmatched dynamics and precision, with a minimum sampling time of 50 µs for the entire controller cascade.

More than ever before, machine and system manufacturers are being bombarded with demands for increased productivity and availability. At the same time, pressure is constantly building to reduce the manufacturing costs for production machines. The new servo drive generation from B&R was designed to meet these challenges. Offering a high degree of integration and an extremely fast sampling time of 50 µs, the ACOPOS P3 is opening up entirely new opportunities for virtual sensing technology.

The ACOPOS P3 is offered as a 1-, 2- and 3-axis drive and covers a power range from 0.6 to 24 kW, or 1.2 to 48 amps. And because the housing of the 3-axis drive is as compact as a conventional single-axis drive, it is possible to reduce the amount of space required in the control cabinet by 69%.

The short cycle time of 50 µs for current, speed and position control opens up new opportunities for virtual sensing. Using a virtual motor position encoder eliminates the need for an encoder, encoder cable and evaluation unit in the servo drive and at the same time increases availability.