Business profile
Controlling and managing a complex system is always difficult, but users in infrastructure industries have the added complexity of having to do the same over extreme distances, with the possibility of thousands of I/O points
I
n environments such as surface rail, airports and underground metro systems, there is often the added
challenge of safety and security. Therefore new concepts and extensive testing are vital to ensuring the highest levels of care and strongest risk management processes. Mitsubishi Electric and its
e-F@ctory Alliance partner, Raima, both long-term suppliers to these industries, put their heads together to solve a common customer problem: the monitoring and tracking of many thousands of assets on a subterrain metro line, and how to do this in a cost-effective, reliable and secure way. The industrial control, process automation and transportation industries have previously struggled with integrating efficient data management within its applications, due to the strict safety and security requirements which are
normally extremely costly to meet. Developers of these systems incur large expenses in analysing and testing, as well as automation software to prevent any possibility of a catastrophic system failure. Raima and Mitsubishi Electric decided
one approach would be to use existing, approved solutions, designed for purpose and combined into a single system. Raima was already strongly positioned in the field of secure data management with combinations of server, PC and embedded solutions which could transfer and manage data in a predictable and repeatable way. Features such as ACID-based data replication and encryption - as used in Bank ATM’s to ensure data is seamlessly and reliably transmitted - as well as the use of a networked database concept which has a predictable speed impact, were critical to this solution. Another key part
of the solution was to design the system architecture as a distributed database. For example, it was planned that small local databases (based on RDMe) were to be embedded in the local PLC; this is where Mitsubishi Electric picked up its part of the solution.
Regarding distributed data
management, Mitsubishi Electric already had the iQ Platform - a combination of PLC and PAC control, ideal for solving the problem of how to embed a fully-operating database in a non-PC environment, while retaining the reliability and security of industrial PLC control. The use of the iQ platform's C Controller was a solution to host the Raima RDM embedded database as it integrated with the PLC control function through the iQ Platform. It also provided industrial reliability, with no moving parts, high environmental
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