Hardware-Software Complex: The Guarantor of Technogenic Safety

The Environment is an integral part of successful living of the mankind. Human impact on the Nature is boundless. We can’t abandon dangerous industries; yet we can reduce the risks of man-made accidents to acceptable minimum, and in many cases even prevent them.

Having on mind desire to make own impact to the Environmental Protection, Edgewood Services has developed the GTS hardware-software complex performing full cycle embedded systems development.

The Guarantor of Technogenic Safety Project was implemented for the plant in Ukraine that produces the polyurethane. Fire and gas leaks constitute a potential hazard for the public, therefore the plant needed the automated system for proper control, reducing the possibilities of damage and performing actions according to emergency response plan in case of the accident.

The GTS complex acts in accordance with the Law on Environmental Protection in Ukraine. It is said  that every hazardous plant must have a plan of actions to minimize the threat of industrial emergencies by automating the control of key production parameter sand execution emergency response plan in case of an accident.

In brief,  this hardware-software complex consists of three main components:

         1) GTS Server gathers information about potentially hazardous factors; in case of the accident, it can generate a list of necessary actions and performs them according to emergency response plan.  With the help of GTS client, it reports data to the operator, receives commands from the operator, and if there is no response from the operator, independently performs the set of actions. GTS Server controls external weather station; records all operator actions, management nodes and system events for further analysis;  and stores data.

        2) GTS client is used for: monitoring the situation on the plant (Industrial Zone Workspace); displaying detailed information about each object beyond the plant (Map Workspace); displaying execution plan and providing the opportunity to control the process of the emergency response plan in case of an accident (Emergency Response Actions Workspace); allows to configure  of the GTS System.

      

     3) Industrial zone which includes: RS-485 network for data exchange between the GTS server and Management Nodes; Management Node is the autonomous system with its own set of plug-executive mechanisms, with ability to make its own independent decisions and resolve problems based on the data received from other Sensors and other Management Nodes. Executive Mechanisms represent any external system that needs to be managed. This may be an emergency removal of gas, electric locks on the doors, alarm systems etc.

Technical details

Server side: OS Windows 2008 server, GTS server service, Firebird database, PSTN device, RS-485 card

Client side: OS Windows 7, GTS Client software

Network side: TCP/IP network, Fieldbus network based on RS-485

Development platforms: RAD Studio2010, Microchip MPLAB IDE

Embedded platform: Microchip PIC Microcontrollers

Languages: C/C++, Assembler, SQL

Having implemented this embedded solution for the plant, we can assert that the GTS complex significantly increased the level of safety and environmental considerations. With this decision remote monitoring of situation on the plant became possible, that helps to prevent the potential danger. In future, basing on the existing scheme, the Central System for Monitoring and Management of hazardous industries may be implemented all around the country on different factories & industries.

Please, check out full presentation:

http://www.slideshare.net/EdgewoodServices/guarantor-of-technogenic-safety-project-12062870