Web-enabled touchscreens allow remote management

An Inmoco product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Nov 26, 2003

The latest iPanel Series of web-enabled touchscreens and HMI software from Control Technology Corp provides industry leading facilities to remotely monitor and manage processes more effectively.

The latest iPanel Series of web-enabled touchscreens and HMI software from Control Technology Corp (CTC) provides industry leading facilities to remotely monitor and manage processes more effectively.

Together, iPanel and CT HMI can be used to graphically display data over corporate Ethernet, Internet or wireless networks, enabling users to manage plant floor devices from office, home or field locations.

The iPanel is CTC's next-generation touch panel for industrial visualisation and interactive control.

It combines a rugged, IP65/NEMA 4 all steel and aluminium enclosure with state-of-the-art graphics and networking features, and the facilities to automatically find and communicate with multiple devices on the network simultaneously.

As a result, users benefit from a no-compromise HMI solution offering better resolution, improved colour density, enhanced touch cell density, superior connectivity, and better value.

The iPanel is available in five different models, all designed to meet user needs in terms of size, resolution, and price.

Each model includes USB, serial, VGA, parallel and Ethernet connectivity for maximum flexibility.

Supplying the highly flexible processing power at the heart of the iPanel touchscreens is CTC's HMI software, a package that provides a quick new approach to graphical interface design.

Built using today's latest Java technology, CT HMI offers a consistent drag-and-drop environment that minimises typing and drawing.

CT HMI objects are both graphically and functionally dynamic, so when dropped into the design window, they appear and function exactly as they do in the runtime environment.

This greatly reduces design time, since there is no need to constantly switch between run and design mode to see what a panel will really look like.

And because it is Java-based, CT HMI screens are easily routed over the Internet and Ethernet networks, providing remote viewers with the same high-quality visual display as the iPanel.

The CT HMI software offers a wide variety of prebuilt intelligent objects designed to meet the most common needs of HMI designers.

The objects are easy to configure for operation in environments where keyboards are undesirable.

In addition, for more specialised panels, there's a universal graphic object that allows custom graphics and picture files to be easily imported into the project.

Using the HMI's "Tag Explorer" function, connecting a graphical element, such as a tank or motor, to an I/O point is a simple and quick drag and drop operation, with no typing required.

Moreover, the Tag Explorer "sees" all connected CTC controllers and CT servers on the network, a facility that can also be extended to non-CTC devices using an optional OPC module.