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SCADA design: Simulation of Manual and Automatic monitoring system in LabVIEW

Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2018 10:44 pm
by Joseph Bundala
Hello guys,

I designed a SCADA monitoring system for temperature and pressure of a tank in the past. I coded the system in the National Instrument software GUI LabVIEW. Whereby, warning LEDs were blinking (RED) if set-point conditions were violated.

Mbege – Traditional beer in the northern part of Tanzania.

Previous design

modeling-simple-scada-system-using-labview-5077

Today, I decided to modify the code by adding another sensor into the tank. Level sensor measures the height of liquid level in a tank. Basically, the modified system will have three sensors which will send their data into SCADA panel through DAQ or Arduino Uno.

Image

Conditions
  1. If temperature sensor detects the value higher than 200C then a warning LAMP will blink RED/YELLOW to alert the operator.
  • If pressure sensor detects the value higher than 10MPa then a warning LAMP will blink RED/YELLOW to alert the operator
  • If level sensor detects height below 1m a warning LAMP will blink RED/YELLOW and sends string message “Tank is empty”. Height above 9m the LAMP will blink and sends a string message “Tank is full”. Finally, height in between 1m and 9m a string message “Normal level”.
LabVIEW Programming.

I demonstrated manual and automatic system monitoring. Manual system, the user uses slide palettes to generate pressure, temperature and level sensor data. However, in automatic system I included random numbers generators which represent pressure, temperature and level where by i differentiated them by assigning “shift registers” between them.

Automatic system

Image

Manual system

Image

Source code
SouceCodeAto.jpg
You can learn this programming language by making simple models. Try to build a model which computes in real time, the average value of the last 4 randomly selected elements.

Future system design;
  1. I will embed Matlab code to generate smooth incremental values for the level sensor. Unlike random number is not an incremental pattern hence poor tank level simulation.
  • I will try to include code for tank auto-refill when the tank is empty and discharge of liquid when the tank is full.
  • Divide the code into subsystems of independent while loops because each sensor has different speed in collecting data.
  • Build a real simple system using Arduino Uno + LabVIEW.
References:
Temperature, pressure and level values are for simulation and demonstration purposes only.
www.ni.com
www.mathworks.com

Re: SCADA design: Simulation of Manual and Automatic monitoring system in LabVIEW

Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2018 12:48 am
by Eli
This is a nice post. Seems a combination of LabVIEW and Arduino is very powerful tool for system control and embedded systems programming! What do I need to start utilizing LabVIEW and Arduino?

Re: SCADA design: Simulation of Manual and Automatic monitoring system in LabVIEW

Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2018 4:50 pm
by Joseph Bundala
For sure LabVIEW and Microcontrollers, (including PLC- powerful microcontrollers) play an important role in design of system controls and embedded systems especially those require data acquisition and data processing. LabVIEW is a typical Graphical programming language which shows visual aspects of industrial processes. I think, anyone with the knowledge in programming and logical skills can learn LabVIEW. There are several online materials which are sufficient to know abc. However, Arduino is a typical C/C++ tiny Atmega microcontroller combining with the knowledge of electronics and electrical can get someone started with simple projects.

Raspberry Pi can also be interfaced with LabVIEW for so many purposes as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCADA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi