March 2002System Integration & Control Systems Design
Flexible Electronic Systems was recently commissioned to design and manufacture two applications for Kgalagadi Breweries in Gaborone, Botswana.
The first phase of the project was to install and automate a de-aerated water plant in the most cost-effective manner. The cost of installing a conventional PLC with an operator panel proved to be too high for the customer's budget.
The SI opted for a solution offered by Bosch Automation in South Africa. The system involved a Bosch PCL-card within a Bosch Industrial PC. The PCL is essentially a PLC in the form of a PCI card running as a virtual network card and using VxWorks realtime system as its platform. The card's on-board Unix processor uses the resources of the IPC including its CPU with full access to all Microsoft applications, while still giving the realtime capability of a conventional PLC. This is what differentiates it from a so-called 'Soft-PLC'.
The PCL-card acts as a Profibus-DP master (or any other standard fieldbus), communicating with the Bosch B~IO decentralised I/O-modules as slaves.
System configuration. Embed within system configuration diagram
The operator's interface was realised with a Wonderware InTouch scada software package, run on the same IPC catering the Bosch PCL with a Bosch touchscreen as the operator panel and process visualisation.
The second phase included the expansion of the system to automate the fusion AFB plant. This was easily achieved by simply adding Profibus-DP slaves in the field and incorporating the fusion AFB plant into the PCL program and scada system. By using the new Bosch technology and the standard Tuchenhagen software and philosophies, a low cost, simple and well-engineered solution was delivered to the customer.
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