Dr. A.

Afzalian
Dept. of Computer & Control Systems Engineering,
The Power & Water University of Technology (PWUT)
A Short Course, April 2005
Process
Automation

Outline:
• Examples of automated processes
• Types of plants and controls
• Automation hierarchy
• Control System Architecture

Process Automation 2/27

Automation Applications
 Power generation hydro, coal, gas, oil, shale, nuclear, wind, solar

 Transmission electricity, gas, oil

 Distribution electricity, water

 Process paper, food, pharmaceutical, metal, processing, glass, cement,

chemical, refinery, oil & gas

 Manufacturing computer aided manufacturing (CIM), flexible fabrication,

appliances, automotive, aircrafts

 Storage silos, elevator, harbor, deposits, luggage handling

 Building heat, ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC), access control, fire,

energy supply, tunnels, highways,....

 Transportation rolling stock, street cars, sub-urban trains, busses,

cars, ships, airplanes, satellites,...

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Examples of Automated Plants

Cars
Appliances control (windows, seats, radio,..)
Motor control (exhaust regulations)
ABS and EPS, brake-by-wire, steer-by-wire

19% of the price is electronics, (+10% per

year)

Airplanes Avionics
flight control, autopilot
flight management
flight recording, black boxes
diagnostics
“fly-by-wire”

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Examples of Automated Plants
Flexible Automation, Manufacturing

Numerous conveyors,
robots, CNC machines,
paint shops, logistics.

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Examples of Automated Plants: Distribution:
Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals (environmental protection)

Upstream:
from the earth to the refinery
(High pressure, saltwater, inaccessibility
explosive environment with gas)

Downstream:
(extreme explosive environment)

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 Examples of Automated Plants:
Power plants
• Raw materials
supply

• Primary process
(steam, wind)

• Personal, plant and

neighbourhood
safety

• Environmental
impact

• Generation
process
(voltage/frequency)

• Energy distribution
(substation)

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Examples of Automated Plants:
Waste treatment, incinerators

• Raw material supply

• Burning process

• Smoke cleaning

• Environmental control

• Co-generation process (steam, heat)

• Ash analysis

• Ash disposal

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Examples of Automated Plants:
Water treatment

Managing pumps, tanks, chemical composition, filters, movers,..

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Automation Systems Manufacturers
Company Location Major mergers
ABB CH-SE Brown Boveri, ASEA, CE, Alfa-Laval, Elsag-Bailey
Siemens DE Plessey, Landis & Gyr, Stäfa, Cerberus,..
Ansaldo IT
Emerson US Fisher Rosemount
General Electric US
Honeywell US
Rockwell Automation US Allen Bradley, Rockwell,..
Alstom FR Alsthom, GEC, CEGELEC, ABB Power,..
Schneider Electric FR Télémécanique, Square-D, ...
Invensys UK Foxboro, Siebe, BTR, Triconex,…
Hitachi JP
Yokogawa JP

€ 80 B / year business, growing 5 % annually

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Technical Necessity of Automation

Processing of the information flow

 Enforcement of safety and availability

 Reduction of personal costs

Process Automation 11/27

Expectations of Automation
 Process Optimisation
– Energy, material and time savings
– Quality improvement, reduction of waste, pollution control
– compliance with laws, product tracking
– Increase availability, safety
– Fast response to market
– Connection to management and accounting

 Acquisition of large number of “Process Variables”, data mining

 Personal costs reduction

– Simplify interface
– Assist decision
– Require data processing, displays, data base, expert systems

 Human-Machine Interface (MMC = Man-Machine Communication)

 Asset Optimisation
– Automation of engineering, commissioning and maintenance
– Software configuration, back-up and versioning
– Maintenance support

 Engineering Tools

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Data Quantity in Different Plants
• Power Plant (25 years ago)
– 100 measurement and action variables (called "points")
– Analog controllers, analog instruments
– one central "process controller" for data monitoring and protocol.

• Thermal power plant (today)

– 10000 points, comprising:
» 8000 binary and analog measurement points and
» 2000 actuation point
– 1000 micro-controllers and logic controllers

• Nuclear Power Plant

– three times more points than in conventional power plants

• Electricity distribution network

– 100’000 – 10’000’000 points

• Data reduction and processing is necessary to operate plants

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 Automation Hierarchy
• Little difference in the overall
architecture of different
applications control systems. Enterprise

• ANS/ISA standard Manufacturing

Execution
• Enterprise Resource Planning:
– Business Planning & Logistics Supervision (SCADA)
– Plant Production Scheduling
– Operational Management, etc.
Group Control
• Manufacturing Execution System:
– Manufacturing
Operations & Control
– Dispatching Production, Detailed Individual
Product Control
Scheduling, Reliability
Assurance,... Field

• Control & Command System:

– Batch control Primary technology
– Continuous Control
– Discrete control
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Example: Siemens WinCC

Process Automation 15/27

Large control system hierarchy
4 Planning, Statistics, Finances administration

3 Workflow, Resources, Interactions enterprise

SCADA = supervision
2 Supervisory Supervisory Control
And Data Acquisition

Group Control

Unit Control
1
Field

Sensors T
& Actors A V

0 Primary technology

Process Automation 16/27

Large control system hierarchy – Cont… 2
• Administration:
– Production goals, planning

• Enterprise:
– Manages resources, workflow, coordinates activities of different sites
quality supervision, maintenance, distribution and planning

• Supervision:
– Supervision of the site, optimization, on-line operations, Control
room, Process Data Base, logging (open loop)

• Group (Area):
– Control of a well-defined part of the plant (closed loop, except for
intervention of an operator)
» Coordinates individual subgroups, Adjusting set-points and parameters
» Commands several units as a whole

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Large control system hierarchy – Cont… 3
• Unit (Cell):
– Control (regulation, monitoring and protection) of a small
part of a group (closed loop except for maintenance)
» Measure: Sampling, scaling, processing, calibration

» Control: regulation, set-points and parameters

» Command: sequencing, protection and interlocking

• Field:
– Sensors & Actuators, data acquisition, digitalization, data
transmission
– No processing except measurement correction and built-in
protection
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 Field level

• Field level is in
direct interaction
with the plant's
hardware

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 unit controllers
Group level
• Group level coordinates
the activities of several
unit controls

• Distributed Control
Systems (DCS)
commonly refers to a
hardware and software
infrastructure to perform
Process Automation

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 Local human interface at group level

Sometimes, the group level has its own Maintenance console /

man-machine interface for local operation
control (here: cement packaging) emergency panel

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Supervisory level: Man-machine interface

• Control room (mimic wall) 1970s...

• All instruments were directly wired to the control room

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Supervisory level:
SCADA = Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition
• Displays the current state of
the process (visualization)

• Display the alarms and

events (alarm log, logbook)

• Display the trends

(historians) and analyse
them

• Display handbooks, data

sheets, inventory, expert
system (documentation)

• Allows communication and

data synchronization with
other centres

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Operator workplace: Three main functions
1. Current state 2. Trends and history

3. Alarms
and
events

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Response time and hierarchical level
Planning ERP
(Enterprise Resource
Level
Planning)

MES
Execution (Manufacturing
Level Execution System)

SCADA
(Supervisory Control
Supervisory and Data Acquisition)
Level
DCS
(Distributed
Control System)
Control
Level PLC
(Programmable
Logic Controller)

ms seconds hours days weeks month years

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Complexity and Reaction Speed in Hierarchical levels

months
ERP
days
MES
minutes
Supervision
seconds
Group Control
0.1s
Individual Control
0.01s
Field
Site
Complexity Reaction Speed
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Operation and Process Data
• Normally, the operator
is only concerned by
the supervisory level,
but exceptionally,
operators (and
engineers) want to
access data of the
lowest levels

• The operator sees the

plant through a fast
data base, refreshed in
background

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