Feature SCADA & Data Acquisition Industry Comment... The benefits of
integrated safety by Karl Walker, Omron Electronics
Increasing timetable accuracy
London Underground has deployed the Raima Database Manager as a key component to help deliver capacity and reliability improvements on the Piccadilly Underground line
T
Machinery designers are under increasing pressure to develop control systems that are faster to design, faster to build, offer greater flexibility, precision and productivity improvements, whilst reducing down-time and mainte- nance. Above all this, they must provide assurance of safe- ty - conforming to international standards and rules. Ultimately, the machine’s safety system should not hinder operation or access to the machine. To achieve this successfully, the safety system needs to inte- grate seamlessly into the overall machine control strategy. Omron’s Sysmac automation platform now integrates the safety solution within the ‘one connection’ and ‘one software’ concept. One connection is realised through the use of Safety over EtherCAT - FSoE - protocol. The one software is achieved by using the Sysmac Studio for configuration, programming and maintenance, ensuring that the safety status information is available instantly throughout the whole system, thus eliminating trou- bleshooting and vastly reducing down-time. The NX safety system consists of safety controller and safety I/O units. Both the safety controller and safety I/O can be freely distributed in any I/O rack throughout the network, mixing them in any combination with standard NX I/O, with the programming fully integrated into the Sysmac Studio project, such that any existing certified programs can be reused, reducing development time and
the amount of verification work. ●
The safety controller meets Category 4, PLe according to
the EN ISO 13849-1 and SIL3 according to the IEC 61508. ●
Up to eight safety input points per unit. ● Safety Function Blocks conforming with IEC 61131-
3 standard programming. ●
● PLCopen Function Blocks for safety.
Integration in one software, Sysmac Studio. Omron Electronics
www.industrial.omron.co.uk T: 01908 258 253
Enter 207
Forward planning With planned upgrade work on the line stretching out to beyond 2020 it is vital that the control systems can cope with change and an increase in the amounts of data they need to handle. In their 2011 business plan TfL hope to introduce a new fleet of passen- ger rolling stock with improved motor per- formance and passenger ‘walk through’ capability by 2020. Train control systems have to be able to cope with this future
The deployment of the Raima Database Manager has allowed London Underground operatives to concentrate their efforts on other elements of the planned upgrade works
he Raima product holds and manages the mass of track occupancy, signal status and other vital data allowing real time display, interrogation and control in order to optimise visibility of the whole line network in real time. The Piccadilly line is one of the last routes to be upgraded by Transport for London (TfL) which is seeking to increase passenger capacity of the line by 24% for 2014, as well as the development of a new control centre in Hammersmith. With much of the control equipment on the line now approaching 30 years of age, improvements were readily realised by replacing electro-mechanical and electro- optical sensors with solid state devices. The Raima Database Manager (RDM) is the
software interface that organises and collates the continuous data stream that is being sent by points and signal position sensors into an optimised relational, hierarchical database - it simultaneously retrieves the data and com- municates the relevant information to both machine and human controllers. The RDM was used as the central storage database for all railway data, track circuit occupancy, signal status and other static data. This data was then used to provide informa- tion displays to the line operations and main- tenance teams to monitor train locations, train numbers, destinations, and routes. The RDM has MVCC functionality which means that whilst the underground opera- tors are reading the data it is not locked and the underlying databases continue to be updated, meaning that operators always have the latest information available.
Raima Database Technology is improving efficiency on the London Underground Piccadilly Line
increase in customer capacity. The deployed version of RDM is already configured for multi-core operation to make the best use of current and future micro- processor performance. Should there be a requirement for different software platforms to use the line data, RDM allows this by supporting the usual ODBC, JDBC and
ADO.Net Drivers as well as the industry standard SQL API. Avoiding train stoppages is a high priority and is governed in part by IEC 61508 (Functional Safety of Electrical/Electronic/Programmable Electronic
Safety-related Systems). The
underpinning concept of the standard is that electronic control systems have high levels of functional reliability and redundancy, which is why the RDM system allows for mirroring and replication of databases to other devices to ensure that in the event of a problem, train operating information is always available. The other key plank of functional reliability is the stability and durability of equipment or software.
the actual
Summary The deployment of
the Raima Database
Manager has allowed London Underground operatives to trust that the data aspect of the trains running on time and being controlled according to safety standards is now taken care of, allowing them to concentrate their efforts on other elements of the planned upgrade works which will ultimately result in an even more robust
train control system and passenger capacity and comfort improvements.
Raima
www.raima.com T: 01628 826 800
22
Enter 208 FEBRUARY 2014 Automation
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56