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What is SCADA system ? its Application in IoT Projects

SCADA projects and system

In this article, our Industrial Automation and IoT developers have helped us understand various features of a SCADA system PLC RTU and what are its applications in Home and Industrial automation based IoT projects.

We will also share brief information about technologies, frameworks and platforms that power a fully-functional SCADA system.

SCADA project solutions for industrial hardware

What is a SCADA software system? – An Introduction

SCADA stands for Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition. SCADA software system is a device monitoring and controlling framework. The supervisory control includes, taking action and control through remote locations for various control mechanisms and processes.

Various kinds of data can be acquired from network of devious (connected through wireless/wired communication systems) for storage, processing and analytics to aid decision making.

Frontend of a SCADA system PLC RTU is a graphical user interface (GUI/UI).

In a nutshell, a SCADA software solution is a real time monitoring, supervision and control system from remote and/or local physical location.

How does The SCADA software system work:

Let’s try to understand the functional blocks of a SCADA project based IoT system, with the help of the simplified IoT framework as shown above

  • The User Interface(UI) of Mobile App or Web based dashboard represented above is the HMI of the SCADA system.
  • This, along with the backend business logic, database (cloud server) and a Gateway constitutes of a SCADA solution for control and monitoring of devices in an IoT network.
  • The IoT gateway ensures compatibility between IoT sensor network and cloud server. Through the gateway, the sensor data is stored in the cloud server.
  • The cloud server is the hosting spot for the algorithms that implement the business logic.
  • The sensor unit detects the change in the environment like change in temperature, sound and also acts as a data accumulating unit.

There can be a number of devices or machines connected within a SCADA solution based IoT project. For an instance, in case of home automation system, various home appliances such as AC, lights, refrigerator can be a part of connected smart home.

Hence SCADA solution is an intelligent software system with an intuitive UI (for data representation) connected with cloud server for data processing and predictive and descriptive analysis.

Usually Acura8mm, Embedded Linux boards, Embedded boards, Embedded single board system, Embedded cellular modem perform the low level tasks.

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FreeRTOS

FreeRTOS

  • FreeRTOS ESP32 Cortex M7 Provides a single and independent solution for many different architectures and development tools.
  • Is known to be reliable. Confidence is assured by the activities undertaken by the SafeRTOS sister project.
  • Is feature rich and still undergoing continuous active development.
  • Has a minimal ROM, RAM and processing overhead. Typically an FreeRTOS ESP32 Cortex M7 kernel binary image will be in the region of 6K to 12K bytes.
  • Is very simple – the core of the RTOS kernel is contained in only 3 C files. The majority of the many files included in the .zip file download relate only to the numerous demonstration applications.
  • Is truly free for use in commercial applications (see license conditions for details).
  • Has commercial licensing, professional support and porting services available in the form of OPENRTOS from our partner WITTENSTEIN high integrity systems.
  • Has a migration path to SafeRTOS, which includes certifications for the medical, automotive and industrial sectors.
  • Is well established with a large and ever growing user base.
  • Contains a pre-configured example for each port. No need to figure out how to setup a project – just download and compile!
  • Has an excellent, monitored, and active free support forum.
  • Has the assurance that commercial support is available should it be required.
  • Provides ample documentation.
  • Is very scalable, simple and easy to use.
  • FreeRTOS offers a smaller and easier real time processing alternative for applications where eCOS, embedded Linux (or Real Time Linux) and even uCLinux won’t fit, are not appropriate, or are not available.
  • FreeRTOS is designed to be small and simple. The kernel itself consists of only three C files. To make the code readable, easy to port, and maintainable, it is written mostly in C, but there are a few assembly functions included where needed (mostly in architecture-specific scheduler routines).FreeRTOS provides methods for multiple threads or tasks, mutexes, semaphores and software timers. A tick-less mode is provided for low power applications. Thread priorities are supported. FreeRTOS applications can be completely statically allocated. Alternatively RTOS objects can be dynamically allocated with five schemes of memory allocation provided:
    • allocate only;
    • allocate and free with a very simple, fast, algorithm;
    • a more complex but fast allocate and free algorithm with memory coalescence;
    • an alternative to the more complex scheme that includes memory coalescence that allows a heap to be broken across multiple memory areas.
    • and C library allocate and free with some mutual exclusion protection.
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Embedded hardware

Embedded hardware with LTE modem

  • Finding the right Embedded Single board computer and software platform for a chosen semiconductor SoC takes time and patience. especially when you need a custom hardware that fits you requirement and also you want to make sure to speed up software development process. if you want a really good fit and need the solution to be highly optimised for cost and performance.  It is sometimes difficult to find a single hardware hardware that is right for your project and that serves all the functionality

  • With all these requirements and variables, selecting the right combination of Operating System, middleware, and CPU can be problem. At SSLA Embedded, we have made available multiple known-good combinations where we have ported and optimised embedded operating systems and middleware onto specific hardware platforms. additionally apart from that at SSLA we can listen to your need and implement your customised hardware software that fits your requirement.

  • For example, the SCADA hardware platform makes a very versatile and capable target embedded evaluation board, particularly when combined with a multi-featured Linux OS.  One specific target for the SCADA embedded board with LTE modem is automotive design prototyping where the processor speed, flexible I/O and serial interfaces, CAN support.  This is particularly true in ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) or Control system applications where deterministic scheduling through the use of an Linux OS combined with flexible interfaces to the vehicle network are needed.  SCADA device can also be expanded using an P8 and P9 header interface in order to accommodate extendable prototypes.

  • To help with the overall design flow, SCADA provide software to capture embedded code, compile, debug and flash to the SCADA targets.  Fast iteration of design changes can be achieved and shorten the time to market, making this embedded software development environment both convenient and extremely practical.where as with customizing hardware software using acura8mm, raspberry pi, beaglebone black, Arduino, Adafruit, Intel, IMX8, IMX6, banana pi, orange pi, solid run, cubox-i, Embedded single board, Best embedded boards requires time and patience with huge resource

  • SSLA Embedded is pleased to announce a new hardware, iSCADA device is a embedded board for industrial application that runs on embedded linux. This product is designed to help clients in many fields of telecom, automotive, medical, remote automation, and industrial control. we provides clients with hardware that meets most of industrial requirements. Anchored by TI’s ARM cortex-A8 CPU 1-Ghz processor, sitara processor SCADA is integrated with the following on board: RS232/serial interface (2), RS485 interface (2), CAN interface, LTE modem, Wifi, Ethernet, eMMC, SD card, USB (2), 512MB SRAM, 1024K eprom, I2C, SPI, 8 LED’s, 4 switches and 20 GPIO’s.

  • SOFTWARE : SCADA software provided by us includes gnu arm embedded toolchain, compiler,RS485 device drivers, RS232 device drivers, CAN drivers,sd card , i2c, spi , lcd LTE modem wifi, ethernet drivers and all of the commonly needed device drivers