Due to their progressive shortage, it is becoming increasingly necessary for raw materials to be extracted from remote locations across the globe. Innovative solutions enable the whole fully automated production process to be controlled remotely which means that the number of personnel employed on site can be reduced to a minimum. In connection with this, Mitsubishi Electric will be presenting its smart Remote Terminal Units (smart RTUs) for the first time at this year’s SPS IPC Drives to be held from 27 to 29 November in Nuremberg, Germany. These are intelligent remote terminals which can supply data to the enterprise system over long distances from diverse plant systems such as oil and gas pipelines, switching stations, tunnels or sewage treatment plants. The solution supports GPRS, EDGE, Ethernet, radio modem or satellite modem technology to transfer the data and in the future, PLC (Power Line Carrier) will also be an option.
The smart RTUs contain tested, industrially hardened control and I/O modules which make them extremely robust as well as suitable for use in extreme temperature conditions. The smart RTU can be operated by means of a modest energy supply provided for example by a photovoltaic system or a wind turbine. A new intelligent add-on data transfer module looks after the whole complex process of protocol handling. As a result, all system engineers have to do is create the monitoring and control logic required in the built-in IEC-61131 PLC programming language. An expanding library of protocols and preconfigured function blocks required for the relevant industry such as protocol standards for the water and waste water, infrastructure, oil and gas industries or the communication standards DNP3, IEC 60870-5 and IEC 61850 for the energy industry is being developed on an ongoing basis. SSL technology provides protection for essential infrastructure data against potential attacks from hackers and cyberterrorism.
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