SCADA / Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition / Automation

SCADA ---  Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition offers the ease of Monitoring of Sensors placed at distances, from one central location

The task of supervision of machinery and industrial processes on a routine basis can be an excruciatingly tiresome job. Always being by the side a machine or being on a 24x7 patrol duty around the assembly line equipment checking the temperature levels, water levels, oil level and performing other checks would be considered a wastage of the expertise of the technician on trivial tasks.

Supervisory Control first evolved in Electric utility systems when a need to operate remote substation equipment without sending in personnel or line crew at the remote site was felt.

General Electric and Control Corporation too developed their own independent supervisory control programs. These were used in pipelines, gas companies and even airports for runway landing lights. These systems became popular during 1950 and 1965. By that time, i.e. in 1960s Telemetry was developed for monitoring purposes.

Elements of SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition)

SCADA monitors, controls and alarms the plant and/or regional facilities’ operating systems from a centralized location. It includes the communication of information between a SCADA central host computer, many scattered units and/or Programmable Logic Controllers.

SCADA Master Station Computer Systems: It is the repository of the real-time or near real-time reported data collected from the remote terminal units connected to it. It is generally standard computer hardware equipment and very few SCADA system suppliers have ventured out to make their own computer equipment. A few companies like IBM and CDC did try making hardware for it, but the effort was short lived and commercial off-the-shelf computer products continue to be the main stay. The back end SCADA software must be able to repeatedly poll the RTUs for data values, should have software for their retrieval, storage and processing. The processing may include unit conversion, cataloguing into tables etc.

Human-Machine Interface: 

This is the eye candy part on the host station. The values that have been stored in the host computers are presented to the human operator in an understandable and comprehensible form using HMIs. These may provide trending, diagnostic or management information and detailed schematics and animations representing the current states of the machines under its control. Pictorial representation being more understandable to humans is the preferred form in SCADA HMIs.