RTAC R155/R201 Technical Note

With the addition of firmware versions R155-V0 and R201-V0 to the RTAC
product line, the following are some notes and additional comments about new
additions or changes in the firmware. These items are compiled from the release
notes found in Appendix A: Firmware and Manual Versions of the
®
ACSELERATOR RTAC SEL-5033 Software Instruction Manual. Please note that
this document does not discuss each release note, but rather just those with addi-
tional context or conversation points.
Some new features or enhancements to existing features in R155/R201 include
the following:
➤ [Cybersecurity Enhancement] Enhanced the IEC 60870-5-104 server
and client to support encrypted TLS/SSL connections.
➤ Added a Continuous Waveform Streaming client for the SEL-735
meter.
➤ Added the Alarm API to support an enhanced RTAC HMI Alarm
Viewer, enabling configurable acknowledgment sequence options
and alarm historical lookup. Note: The HMI runtime update with the
updated Alarm Viewer is not included with this firmware update and
must be installed separately.
➤ Added a DNS Lookup tool to the Network Utilities page in the web
interface.
➤ Added support for Georgian fonts to the Axion Touchscreen display.
➤ Enhanced the custom screens application on the Axion Touchscreen
display to support as many as 1,000 digital labels.
➤ Enhanced the SEL server with the ability to create custom client noti-
fications.
➤ Enhanced the SEL server with an EXI command to terminate an
Ethernet-tunneled-serial connection.
➤ Enhanced the Modbus client to support using a shared TCP tunnel
with other clients when configured with an Ethernet connection type
and using shared Server IP and Port destinations.
➤ Enhanced the DNP, Modbus, IEC 60870-5-101/104, and IEC 61850
MMS servers to support a configurable startup delay timer.
➤ Enhanced the IEC 60870-5-104 server to support as many as four
simultaneous redundant connections.
➤ Enhanced the SEL protocol client to expose the Enable New Event
Filtering and Enable ASCII SER Collection settings as Basic settings
rather than requiring direct use of the associated POU Pin Settings.
ACSELERATOR RTAC version 1.155.201.5000 enhancements include the
following:
➤ Enhanced the Ethernet/IP protocol to include a Rockwell Automa-
tion license key in the generated EDS file to better integrate an RTAC
communicating with a Rockwell controller.

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Library Extension additions and enhancements include the following:

➤ Enhanced the Digital Fault Recorder extension to add support for
CSV configuration import/export, additional substation assets, condi-
tional enabling of synchrophasor tags, and filtered SOE CSV log
records.
The following are additional comments on new features and changes in the RTAC
product line.

Continuous Waveform Streaming Client

The SEL-735 Power Quality and Revenue Meter is capable of producing dual
3 kilosamples/second (ksps) streams via a Continuous Waveform Streaming
(CWS) server interface. The server streams out unsolicited UDP packets of point-
on-wave three-phase voltage and current sample data at a rate of 60 packets per
second, with 50 sets of samples embedded in each packet. In R201 firmware, the
RTAC now supports a Continuous Waveform Streaming (CWS) client as a
licensed option supported on SEL-2241-2, SEL-3350, and SEL-3555 hardware.
This feature is only supported on 200-series 64-bit firmware, and as many as 16
instances of the CWS client are supported in a single project.
Sample data from the CWS client are accessed in an RTAC project via
IEC 61131 logic, which provides a robust interface for accessing the high-resolu-
tion sample stream while remaining agnostic of the configured RTAC task cycle.
Access to these high-resolution data samples provides library authors and inte-
grators the facilities to create a variety of advanced applications such as the fol-
lowing:
➤ RMS, Energy, and harmonics calculations
➤ Advanced control system algorithms
➤ Detection of subsynchronous oscillations
A future version of RTAC firmware will enhance the capability of the CWS client
to also pass the data samples to the optional Continuous Recording Group feature
for logging at full 3 kHz.

Alarm API to Support Enhanced RTAC HMI Alarm Viewer

A new Alarm API, along with a follow-on release of the RTAC HMI Runtime
Binary (expected release in late August 2025), will enhance the RTAC HMI
Alarm Viewer with customer-requested features such as the following:
➤ Performance enhancements for large systems with many configured
or active alarms
➤ Configurable alarm acknowledgment behavior (e.g., re-acknowledge
on alarm clear)
➤ Simple alarm history lookup from the active alarm viewer
➤ Enhanced performance for alarm annunciator tiles
As in the existing functionality, status points such as SPS or DPS are configured
as alarms using the Tag Processor or Simple Tag Mapper, or with direct use of
Logger_SPS or Logger_DPS function blocks. Any logger instances with alarm-
ing enabled are visible to the new API and the corresponding RTAC HMI fea-
tures.
As part of the effort to enhance the HMI alarm viewer, adjustments were made to
better align the RTAC with IEC 62443-4-2 (protection of audit information—
Security Level 3). These adjustments removed the ability to delete individual
SOE records via the web interface or Axion touchscreen. The complete SOE log
can still be deleted via the Device Management functions.

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SEL Server Custom Notifications and EXIT Command

The new firmware release has enhanced the SEL server in two notable ways with
the addition of Custom Notifications and an EXIT command.
The first is the ability to create custom notifications in the SEL server. This
allows for custom user logic to create logged messages that can later be retrieved
by a user or automated system that logs into the SEL server and executes the
CNO SUM ALL command. New custom notifications can optionally generate
unsolicited messages to listening clients such as Blueframe DMA and those mes-
sages can be acknowledged once received and processed. For example, user logic
could be written to create a logged entry every time the LAMP TEST button changes
state. When the logged entries are retrieved with the CNO SUM ALL command,
they will look similar to the following example:

Figure 1 SEL Server Custom Notifications

The second enhancement to the SEL server comes in the form of a new EXIT
command that can be run at the engineering access terminal when connected to
an SEL device that uses an Ethernet-Tunneled-Serial connection type. While the
existing QUIT command would log an existing user out to Access Level 0, it
would leave the connection session open. The new EXIT command will log out
an existing user and cleanly terminate the connection. This allows for better inte-
gration with external scripting tools that log in to the SEL server on a regular
basis to perform some automated function.

Modbus Client Shared Tunneling

In many industrial port server applications, a port server device (such as an
SEL-3610) provides translation between a Modbus/TCP enabled port on an
Ethernet connection and a collection of multiple uniquely addressed Modbus
RTU servers. This design is sometimes expected to use a single TCP connection
from a Modbus TCP client to the port server Modbus TCP server interface to
communicate to each Modbus server.
In the following example, each of the Modbus RTU IEDs on the EIA-485 net-
work is addressable with a unique Modbus server address, and the port server
provides translation between Modbus TCP to Modbus RTU. The Modbus TCP
client is expected to make a single TCP connection to the port server and then
issue subsequent queries to poll each of the three Modbus IEDs using Modbus
TCP messaging, as if each IED exists at the same endpoint.

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Figure 2 Modbus Port Server Application

In this latest RTAC firmware update, this configuration can now be enabled on
Modbus client devices that use a Client – Ethernet connection type, and the
option instructs clients using a common Server IP Address and Server IP Port
configuration parameter to share a common TCP connection to the port server
endpoint, rather than attempting to open unique TCP connections that may not be
supported by the port server. To enable this feature, select the Advanced Settings
checkbox on an applicable Modbus client and toggle the Use Shared TCP Con-
nection option to True.

IEC 60870-5-1-4 Encrypted Connections

To enable secure communications between IEC 60870-5-104 clients and servers,
both the client and server protocol implementations in the RTAC now support
optional tunneling through an SSL/TLS-encrypted connection to ensure confi-
dentiality and integrity of data while in transit. Enable the option by selecting the
Advanced Settings checkbox on an IEC 60870-5-104 device configured with the
Ethernet connection option, and change the Transport Security setting from the
default of None to SSL/TLS. On a server protocol instance, optionally enable cli-
ent certificate verification to provide additional validation of the incoming client
certificate against known, trusted certificates in the RTACs CA certificate stor-
age.

Digital Fault Recorder Extension [Link] Upgrade

The Digital Fault Recorder extension has received another major upgrade while
still maintaining compatibility with R154/R200 firmware. In this latest update the
following features are added:
➤ CSV configuration file import/export—configure your entire DFR
system from a CSV file
➤ Support for as many as 64 substation assets
➤ Optional enabling of synchrophasor data from SEL-PRCTPT mod-
ules in order to enable larger configurations with more modules and
assets

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Each time a project containing the DFR extension is saved, a CSV output file rep-
resenting the present DFR settings is output to the ACSELERATOR RTAC Logs
folder. That CSV file template can be then copied and manipulated to allow man-
agement of settings in an Excel-based environment for configuring the following
aspects of the extension:
➤ General settings
➤ Axion EtherCAT nodes
➤ Substation assets
➤ Asset-specific settings (module assignments, nominal values,
triggers)
➤ Local monitoring
➤ Digital inputs, digital outputs, and analog inputs
➤ Custom channels
The following sample CSV content shows configuration of 10-slot and 4-slot
EtherCAT nodes as well as four substation assets:

Figure 3 DFR Extension Sample CSV Configuration

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After the CSV configuration is applied to the extension, both the nodes and all
four assets are present and configured per the CSV values:

Figure 4 DFR CSV Settings Applied to Extension

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RTAC R155/R201 Technical Note Date Code 20250730