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| ITI releases wireless mesh SCADA system |
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November 5, 2007 - SCADAMESH completely wireless SCADA system is able to be configured and run without any wires connecting the remote sensors and other devices to the base station. SCADAMESH supports analog and digital I/O and features an integral, optional PLC on a Chip as well as a programmable processor and memory. Power is battery or line powered.
SCADAMESH is a client/server architecture which supports Web Services and outputs either XML or CSV formats. It can easily be connected to legacy SCADA systems.
However, a SCADA system is not necessary to run SCADAMESH in standalone mode, as the software handles (tags) IO Mapping, MESH packet building and addressing, and PLC reflashing via the MESH.
Currently ITI supports both the MESH protocol and VersaMESH however can be made to support any vendor's schema because of SCADAMESH's original segmented component based orientation. Therefore the software can support any vendor's MESH networking schema, and the boards can be designed to support any vendor's MESH, including Zigbee, or any other proprietary MESH. In addition, a PLC can be used, or not, depending on the user's needs. If used, the PLC can be the integral PLC on a Chip, or any vendor's external PLC.
In order to be totally wireless and still support SCADA functionality, we use “IO Mapping” techniques to set the system up. IO Mapping allows the system to know which “source” IO (tags) on each board is targeting which other IOs on which other boards. Multiple “sources” and “targets” can be intermingled, and each source IO can have up to 8 “alarm” or trigger settings based on condition.
Once all the IO ports are configured, and their “source” and “target” IO is “mapped,” each board's “map”, is sent to the processor on the board. The processor stores the map, and when a source IO needs to send a message, the processor selects the correct MESH protocol, builds a conforming packet, addresses it, and sends it into the MESH for delivery – all without needing a SCADA system.
Once the IO Mapping exercise is complete, the user can begin downloading PLC programs or processor code if no PLC is in use. Since SCADAMESH is PLC agnostic and MESH agnostic, it can be set up to build packets for transport over any MESH.
SCADAMESH can handle transporting different PLC programs (ie: AB and GE) on the same system.
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