SCADA
SCADA, which stands for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition, generally refers to the control system of the industry which is a computer system which contols and monitors a process. This process can be infrastructure, facility or industrial based which is as described as below:
Industrial processes include production, refining, manufacturing, fabrication, and power generation and may run in batch, continuous, discrete or repetitive modes.
The infrastructure processes can be private or public, and includes water treatment and the distribution, wastewater treatment and collection, electrical power distribution and transmission, gas and oil pipelines, civil defense siren systems, and the large communication systems.
Space stations, airports, ships, buildings both the private and public facilities have all the facility processes. These facility processes control and monitor access, consumption, HVAC, and energy
The following subsystems are usually present in the SCADA system:
The apparatus which presents to the human operator all the processed data and via this human operator control and monitor the processes is called Human-Machine Interface or HMI.
A supervisory system which acquires all the required data about the process and sending to the process all the control (commands).
Remote Terminal Units (RTUs) which connect to the sensors of the process, which help to convert the sensor signals to the digital data and sending this digital data to supervisory stream.
Difference between Scada & DCS
- DCS is process oriented, while SCADA is data acquisition oriented.
- DCS is process driven, while SCADA is event driven.
- DCS is commonly used to handle operations on a single locale, while SCADA is preferred for applications that are spread over a wide geographic location.
SCADA stands for Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition
DCS stands for Distributed Control System
- Electrical power grids and electrical generation plants
- Environmental control systems
- Traffic signals
- Radio signals
- Water management systems
- Oil refining plants
- Metallurgical process plants
- Chemical plants
- Pharmaceutical manufacturing
- Sensor networks
- Dry cargo and bulk oil carrier ships