Year 2001
Juha Timperi

Utilization of Fieldbus Technology in Control and Information System of a Process Device

The objective of this thesis was to build a fieldbus based automation system for a pilot flotation cell in the Laboratory of Process Control and Automation at HUT and to research the possibilities in utilizing digital fieldbus technology in device diagnostics. This thesis was done as a part of the Tekes-project "Embedded fault diagnostics in an intelligent flotation cell".

The goal was to build an automation system similar to the commercial Proscon system. The main difference from the Proscon system was utilization of a digital fieldbus instead of analog 4-20 mA signalling. An architecture that would be scaleable and as modular as possible was aimed for. Because the system was to be used for research on device diagnostics, the presence of "islands of automation" was not accepted. All the information from the field level was to be readable from the supervisory levels

In the literature part of the thesis, the architecture of the system that fulfils the criterion described above is discussed. Then the related interface standards are described; fieldbuses on the instrument level and OPC on the system level.

In the experimental part of the thesis, the structure of the automation system of the pilot flotation tank is described and the technologies chosen are argued. Fieldbus technology was chosen to be Foundation Fieldbus because it is highly suitable for use in device diagnostics. The supervisory level communication mechanism was chosen to be OPC. During the thesis a Fidi diagnostics tool by the Technical Research Centre of Finland was also tested.

Because of the good experiences from the thesis, it can be claimed that Foundation Fieldbus and OPC form a good basis for device diagnostics.

This info last modified 27 Apr 2024 - contact webmaster