Wireless systems aid remote process monitoring
An
Emerson Process Management - Power + Water product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Nov 14, 2005
Wireless technology offers a safe, flexible and efficient way of notifying wastewater treatment plant operators of important alarms and events according to Emerson Process Management.
Wireless technology is a safe, flexible and efficient method for notifying wastewater treatment plant operators of important alarms and events - especially when they are away from a standard HMI (Human Machine Interface), according to Emerson Process Management.
In a technical paper entitled 'Remote Continuous Operator Monitoring of Plant Process Equipment', David L.
Cooper II, Lead Technical Engineer, and Alvan Plymire, fellow engineer, both of Emerson's Power and Water Solutions industry centre, describe the design of a remote process monitoring system using wireless technology at a large wastewater treatment facility.
The paper was presented at WEFTEC '05, the 78th Annual Technical Exhibition and Conference of the Water Environment Federation in Washington DC.
The facility, with a capacity of 370 million gallons per day and a peak wet weather capacity of more than 1 billion gallons per day, is in the process of installing an integrated distributed control system to monitor and control plant processes.
Operators in the facility's new central control room (CCR) and three area control centres (ACCs) use HMI displays to monitor the status of wastewater treatment processes and equipment.
Occasionally, the operator must leave the CCR or ACCs for a plant walk down.
During this time, the operator cannot monitor or respond to alarms or events.
Two traditional options - utilising an additional operator for monitoring, or allowing brief periods of time when the process is not closely monitored - carry potential financial and environmental consequences.
"Remote access via wireless technology allows the plant operator to monitor and respond to process alarms and events, both while in the CCR or ACC, as well as during rounds when he is away from a standard HMI", explained Cooper, who noted that rigorous security measures that ensure safe and secure facility operation will be a focus of the presentation.
According to Plymire, wireless technology has matured in recent years and now provides practical and secure functionality for process industries, such as wastewater treatment.
"From basic system event notification via pagers or SMS (Short Message Service) to mobile telephone and PDA-based browsers and fully functional operator workstations, plant operators have a wide selection of options available for process monitoring outside the control room", said Plymire.
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