What Is Configuration Software?
The configuration software is a control system composed of HMI(Human Machine Interface)/MMI(Human Machine Interface)/SCADA(Monitoring and Data Acquisition). At present, the rapid development of configuration software has extended to enterprise information management systems, management and control integration, remote diagnosis and maintenance, and a series of data integration on the Internet.
- Software background configuration
The appearance of distributed control system(DCS) is western “; most production process automation technicians are familiar with it
In the process of continuous development and application of industrial control technology, PC(including industrial computer) has more advantages than previous dedicated systems. PC technology has maintained a rapid development speed, and various related technologies have matured.
The cost of industrial control system built by PC is relatively low. PC has rich software and hardware resources. The interoperability between software and PC based control system is strong, easy to learn and use, and users can easily obtain technical support.
In the process of PC technology penetrating into the field of industrial control, configuration software occupies a very special and important position.
Configuration software is special software used to collect data and control processes. Software platform and development environment for automatic control of system monitoring level. Flexible configuration mode is used to provide users with general software tools for rapid construction of monitoring functions of industrial automatic control system. The configuration software must support a variety of industrial control devices and general communication protocols, which provide distributed data management and network functions.
Compared with the initial concept of HMI, the configuration software should be a software tool or development environment that allows users to quickly build their own HMI.
Before the appearance of configuration software, it took a long time for users in the field of industrial control to create HMI applications, which was inefficient and unreliable. Or, users often shut down the system and purchase special industrial control systems, resulting in inappropriate choices.
The purchased special system often cannot meet the requirements, and it is difficult to interact with the outside world, upgrade and increase power. Energy use is severely limited.
The invention of configuration software enables users to get rid of these difficulties. Users can use the functions of configuration software to build the most appropriate application system.
With the rapid development of configuration software, extensive support for real-time database, real-time control, SCADA, communication and network, open data interface and I/O equipment has become the main content of configuration software. With the development of technology, the monitoring configuration software will continue to develop.
- Software product configuration
With the in-depth application of industrial control systems, people are increasingly aware that the original host computer programming and development methods are time-consuming and laborious in projects facing larger and more complex control systems
At the same time, the extensive application of management information system(MIS) and computer integrated manufacturing system(CIMS) requires that more detailed and in-depth data be provided for the production, operation and decision-making of enterprises at the industrial site, and all aspects of enterprise production and operation are optimized.
There are several configuration software.
2.1 InTouch
Previous InTouch software used DDE mode to communicate with the driver, but the performance was poor. The latest in touch 7.0 is based on 32-bit Windows platform and provides OPC support.
2.2 iFix
HMI/SCADA iFIX program interface for desktops and tablets
2.3 Refer to
CITEC of CIT Corporation is simple to operate, but it is more suitable for programmers than industrial control users. Citect provides a script language similar to C language for secondary development, which increases the difficulty for users to perform secondary development.
24000 cubic centimeters
Siemens WinCC also has a complete configuration development environment. Simons provides scripts similar to C, including debugging environment. The WINCC supported by embedded OPC can be configured with a distributed system. However, the structure of WinCC is relatively complex, and users should master the application of WinCC through Siemens’ training.
2.5 Force control
In 1993, Beijing Third Dimension Yuanli Control Technology Co., Ltd.(Co., Ltd.) developed its first judgment control, which is still based on DOS and VMS. Since then, with the widespread popularity of Windows 3.1, the company has developed a 16 bit Windows version of force control. However, before the birth of the Windows 95 version of force control, the previous force control was mainly used for some projects in the company. The 32-bit version 1.0 mandatory control has made further progress in the architecture. One of the biggest characteristics is based on the configurable active structure. In practical sense, the three-layer structure of distributed real-time database
From 1999 to 2000, great progress was made in force control. The latest version 2.0 has greatly improved the rich functions, which are easy to use and open, and the number of I/O drivers is increasing. In many aspects of design, power control can be conducted from the perspective of Chinese users. Namely, it pays attention to practicality without losing the specification of large-scale software. In addition, the company has invested a lot of manpower in product training, user technical support, etc. I believe that in a relatively short period of time, vigorously controlling software products will have a huge impact on the industrial control software industry.
Other common configuration software includes Cimplicity of GE, RSView of Rockwell, lookout of Ni, Wizcon of PC software, and MCGS of China General Software Corporation. This software has its own characteristics.
- Develop
- configuration software functions
All currently displayed configuration software can achieve similar functions. For example, almost all configuration software running on the 32-bit Windows platform uses a window structure similar to the resource browser to configure and edit various resources in the industrial control system(devices, number of tags, graphs, etc.).
The configuration software provides a variety of data drivers, and provides secondary development functions in script language. However, from a technical perspective, various configuration software provides a variety of methods for realizing these functions. From these differences and the development trend of PC technology, we can see the future development direction of configuration software.
3.1 Data collection
Most configuration software provides a variety of data collectors, which you can configure as needed. However, drivers can be provided by configuration software developers or written by users according to specific configuration software interface specifications, so it is very difficult for users. OPC specification is proposed by OPC consortium. OPC specification is based on Microsoft’s OLE/DCOM technology and provides a complete solution for software component interaction and data sharing in distributed systems.
In systems that support OPC, data providers act as servers and data requesters act as clients. The server and client communicate through the DCOM interface, and do not know the internal details of each other. COM technology is implemented at the binary code level, so servers and clients can be provided by different manufacturers.
In practical use, the data collection program as a server is usually provided by the hardware device manufacturer together with the hardware, which can give full play to all the performance of the hardware. The configuration software can be well connected with the drivers of various suppliers through OPC, which fundamentally solves the problem that the drivers of special formats lag behind the hardware updates.
You can also use the configuration software as a server to provide data for other applications, such as MIS. OPC is supported by famous overseas manufacturers such as Interference, Siemens, GE, ABB, etc. With the popularization of configuration software and hardware devices supporting OPC, using OPC to collect data will become a more reasonable choice when using configuration products.
3.2 Script Functions
Script language is an important means to extend system configuration functions. Therefore, most configuration software provides a scripting language. There are three ways to implement a scripting language: First, embedded C/basic language is used. Second, use Microsoft’s VBA programming language. Third, some configuration software uses object scripting languages. C/basic, which is similar to the language, requires the use of statements similar to high-level languages to write scripts, and use the combination of function calls provided by the system to execute various system functions.
Microsoft’s VBA is a relatively complete development environment. The configuration software using VBA usually uses Microsoft’s VBA environment and component technology to implement objects in the configuration system in the form of components.
VBA programs are used to access these objects.
Because visual basic is parsed and run, you cannot find some syntax errors in the VBA program before running it. Object scripting language provides an object access mechanism, and objects in the system can be accessed through their properties and methods. It is easy for users to learn, understand and extend the scripting language, but it is more complex.
3.3 Adding Functions in the Configuration Environment
The configuration environment provides the ability to add new functionality to the system without changing the original system. Other functions can be provided by configuration software developers, third-party software suppliers or users themselves. The most common way to add functions is to apply ActiveX components. At present, only a few configuration software introduce this function, and use scripting language to provide access to imported objects, providing a complete ActiveX component.
3.4 Openness of configuration software
With the popularization of management information system and computer integrated manufacturing system, the application of production site data is not only data collection and monitoring.
In the production and manufacturing process, a large amount of field data is needed to analyze and control the process, so as to realize the adjustment and optimization of the production process.
Most requirements of the existing configuration software are only provided in the form of reports, or data is exported to an external database for calling other business systems through ODBC. In most cases, the configuration software needs to be redeveloped to implement.
With the increase of information demand in production decision-making activities, the integration of configuration software and management information system or leadership information system will be closer. It is expected that the configuration software will appear in the form of modules to realize data analysis and decision-making functions.
3.5 Internet support
The production mode of modern enterprises has become international and distributed. Network will become the basis of decentralized production
For all configuration software developers, whether the configuration software can run on the original LAN to support the Internet is an important issue.
For a long time, in most applications, monitoring industrial sites through the Internet through browser mode will remain in the monitoring stage. The actual control function should be realized through more stable technologies such as dedicated remote clients, ActiveX controls provided by professional developers, or Java technology.
3.6 Software control configuration
At present, the products with great influence in the world include ISAGRAF package of CJ International, France, WinPLC of PCSoftware International, Paradym-31 of Wizdom Control Intelligence, ProcessSuite of Moore Process Automation Solutions, InControl of Wonderware Control, SoftPLC, etc.
According to the requirements of the enterprise for solidity and efficiency, the control scheme based on classical control theory can no longer meet this requirement. With the successful application of advanced control strategy represented by multivariable predictive control, advanced process control(APC) has been widely concerned by the process industry. APC is an operation and control strategy implemented in a model-based dynamic environment that makes full use of computer capabilities and maximizes the effectiveness of chemical plants.
Advanced control strategies include dual control and valve control, pure lag compensation control, decoupling control, adaptive control, differential control, state feedback control, multivariable predictive control, inference control and soft sensor technology, intelligent control(expert control, fuzzy control and neural network control), etc. Intelligent control has become a hotspot in development and application.
At present, many enterprises are investing in the implementation of advanced control in the automation system of equipment. Many foreign control software companies and DCS manufacturers are competing for the development of advanced control and optimization control engineering software packages.
Market data shows that the ethylene plant needs to invest 1.63 million dollars to implement cutting-edge control, and the income after implementation is expected to be 6 million dollars per year. Therefore, the assembly software of advanced control and built-in optimal control strategy will be greatly welcomed by users.
- Summary
User requirements promote the continuous progress of technology, especially in configuration software. The future configuration software will provide configuration functions in a more powerful distributed environment and support ActiveX. The configuration software is a powerful and extended open system that supports OPC and other industry standards. It also provides powerful control over Internet access.
The broad sense of HMI is “human computer interface”. The communication and information transmission between the user and the system and the interface used by the user to receive information “;
For example, the factory needs to collect the temperature and humidity of each area of the factory, as well as the mechanical status of the factory. By monitoring and recording these parameters on a single device, users can handle some unexpected situations. This is a common application for SCADA/HMI.
Generally, HMI system must have the following basic functions:
*Show Real Time Data Trends – Displays captured data on the screen immediately.
*Automatic data logging – Automatically stores data in a database for later viewing.
*Display Historical Data Trend – Data Visualization in Database
*Generate and Print Reports – Convert data to report format and print.
*Graphical Interface Control – The operator can directly control the machine and other equipment through the graphical interface.
*Generate and Log Alerts Users can define certain conditions for generating alerts. For example, if the temperature is too high or the pressure exceeds the threshold, the system will warn the operator.
*Confirm HMI images of all major brands of Okarts