Digital Communication
Industral IoT vs Traditional SCADA
What is industrial IoT and why is it better than traditional SCADA? This article looks at some of the differences between the two
T
raditional SCADA systems have tended to be stand- alone systems that send steady streams of raw data to a single endpoint, which may be a PLC, an HMI or a
software application. They are good at collecting and transmitting data, but the data still requires human analysis before it can be turned into useful business decisions. And because traditional SCADA systems do not distinguish between data that has value and data that does not, like a temperature parameter that is remaining within desired limits, they generate a lot of unnecessary network traffic. Industrial Internet of Things is far more sophisticated. Let’s look at a few of the differences.
Data silos vs. interoperability
Many of the “things” that will make up the industrial Internet of Things (IoT) already exist. Industry isn’t going to uproot decades’ worth of data communications infrastructure simply because newer technologies have appeared. Instead, IoT tech is designed to communicate with what is already in place, and to incorporate it. IoT tech translates legacy and proprietary protocols where necessary. It provides connectivity for legacy interfaces like RS- 232/422/485 and I/O. It provides appropriate media conversions for existing infrastructure, like copper-to-fibre. No matter where your data is sourced, or in what format, IoT tech will make it available to your newest applications.
New kinds of data Consider an industrial motor. It has no data communications port and no voice of its own. But you can equip it with industry standard sensors that measure parameters like temperature, vibration and current usage. You can then connect those sensors to IoT wireless network nodes. The wireless IoT nodes report the sensor data to your network, where your analytics application can compare the parameters to past readings and expected norms, make predictions about potential problems, and call for preventative maintenance before small problems become big ones. The motor itself hasn't changed. But it has now become a network node on the Internet of Things.
The very same technology can be used to identify
inefficiencies in industrial processes. Equipping individual machines and panels with current sensors can tell a plant operator exactly where the energy costs are coming from. The operator can then use this data to make highly informed business decisions.
New kinds of sensors continue to appear. They keep getting smaller and smarter. They are turning more and more and more devices into network nodes. But industrial IoT is agnostic about the nature of the data source; it simply doesn’t matter. If the data exists, industrial IoT can
www.cieonline.co.uk
collect it, transport it to the appropriate locations, and put it to work.
Data availability and data exploitation Traditional SCADA typically sends data to a single location. Industrial IoT uses techniques like MQTT publish/subscribe protocols, call it “Twitter for machines”, if you like, to make data available to as many applications and as many locations as needed. Industrial IoT doesn’t just transmit data. It captures, processes, distributes and stores data in unprecedented quantities, then mines it for actionable insights.
Better still, industrial IoT can bring together different kinds of data from disparate sources and derive insights that no single data set could have supported. An autonomous irrigation system that monitors soil conditions and knows exactly when to release water is already a big step up from ordinary SCADA. But an IoT irrigation system that doesn’t make a decision until it has also checked the weather report is even better.
Network intelligence Traditional SCADA broadcasts steady streams of data. But it’s expected that industrial IoT will add billions of new devices to our networks. If all of these new devices followed the old model, and they continuously published every bit of data that they collected, our networks would be swamped with oceans of unnecessary traffic. So industrial IoT places far more intelligence out at the network edge. Autonomous IoT edge devices follow simple rules and make decisions about what needs to be transmitted, and when. If a sensor parameter isn’t exceeding specified limits, for example, and the IoT analytics application only needs to be alerted when the parameter exceeds those limits, the IoT edge device will not transmit.
These, and other techniques, are allowing us to add huge numbers of new devices to our networks. We are expanding the network edge to include things and locations that were formerly out of reach. We are decentralising our networks by placing fully functional embedded computers out at the network edge, but retaining the ability to monitor and control the entire network from the network core, wherever and whenever that might be necessary. Industrial IoT tech may work in tandem with your existing SCADA infrastructure, preserving its value until there is an undeniable business case for replacing it, but it’s not just advanced SCADA. Industrial IoT lets us derive the full potential from the data that we collect.
www.bb-smartworx.com Components in Electronics December 2015/January 2016 33
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