Journal of Scientific & Industrial Research

858 J SCI IND RES VOL 68 OCTOBER 2009

Vol. 68, October 2009, pp. 858-860

Remote monitoring system for distributed control of industrial plant process

R Kirubashankar1*, K Krishnamurthy1 and J Indra2
1
Department of Mechatronics Engineering, 2Department of Electronics & Instrumentation Engineering,
Kongu Engineering College, Perundurai, Erode 638 052, India

Received 10 February 2009; revised 17 June 2009; accepted 09 July 2009

This paper proposes a remote monitoring system as part of Distributed Control System (DCS) of process plant. Remote
plant critical alarms from DCS are continuously monitored online through Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA)
system. A report, which contains alarm details formulated through MS-Excel, is sent to respective e-mail recipients through
Outlook Express. For system maintenance, M2M gateway and Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology are used in remote
monitoring. Service engineers can remotely view real time conditions of plant area, diagnose problem and help plant engineers to
rectify it to avoid plant failures and maximizing plant process availability.

Keywords: Distributed control system, Supervisory control and data acquisition system, Virtual private network

Introduction to monitor industrial processing units physically in extreme

Remote monitoring and intelligent maintenance is
one of the most important criteria for maximizing
production and process plant availability1-3. Wireless
media has been undergoing a rapid innovation process
in search for a reliable, simple and business-viable
technology for fast, easy and inexpensive diagnosis of
faults in process plants. Majority of industries use
distributed control system (DCS) for high reliability,
improved response time, improved operator interface
to plant, improved accessibility of plant data to
engineering & management personals and improved
historical storage and retrieval system. This study
proposes a remote monitoring system as part of DCS
of process plant.
Existing Process Control Systems
Distributed Control System (DCS)
DCS collects data from process plant for
formulating advanced process control strategies
(Fig. 1).
Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) System
SCADA system is a software package positioned
on top of hardware. It is interfaced with industrial
processing units through Programmable Logic
Controllers (PLCs). It is not always possible and feasible
*Author for correspondence
Tel: 04294-226725
E-mail: rks@kongu.ac.in; kiruba06@gmail.com
environmental conditions of plant. This leads to improper
maintenance causing breakdown. This delay in identifying
causes of failure renders industrial units unusable. Such
problems can be solved by constantly monitoring the plant
and environmental conditions from a remote location.
General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) System
GPRS remote monitoring device enables industrial
units to be monitored through wireless Internet from a
remote location. GPRS provides actual packet radio
access to Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication
and Time-Division Multiple Access (TDMA) users. Main
benefits of GPRS are to reserve radio resources when
there is data to send and it reduces reliance on traditional
circuit-switched network elements. Increased functionality
of GPRS decreases incremental cost to provide data
services among consumer and business users, with
reliability, response time, and other supported features.
Proposed Remote Monitoring System for
Distributed Control (RMSDC)
Proposed RMSDC (Fig. 2) is a part of DCS of process
plant. In any industrial plant running with DCS, following
parameters of DCS are monitored continuously: i) alarm
(process alarms, critical alarms etc.) monitoring; ii) mimic
/graphic display; iii) trend display; iv) operator guidance
display; v) system & diagnostic display; vi) control; vii)
bar chart; viii) sequence display; and ix) fault analysis
display.
KIRUBASHANKAR et al: REMOTE MONITORING FOR DISTRIBUTED CONTROL OF PROCESS PLANT 859

Fig. 1— Architecture of DCS

Fig. 2— Architecture of proposed remote monitoring system for distributed control of industrial process plant
860 J SCI IND RES VOL 68 OCTOBER 2009
Alarms are used in any plant for ensuring fault free
operation. A separate database is made in MS Access /
MY SQL in SCADA for maintaining alarm code, date
and time of occurrence of alarm, alarm description, alarm
meaning, alarm cause and action. Whenever an alarm
event concerning alarm occurs in plant, SCADA scans
alarm code in DCS alarm information file. Alarm code is
then compared with database and alarm report file is
generated in MS Excel. Each alarm report consists of
alarm description, alarm meaning, alarm cause, action
etc., besides information about alarms that occurred 30
minutes earlier. It sharpens diagnostic procedure to
identify causes of faults.
A SCADA- VB (Visual Basic) application is created
for transferring generated alarm report automatically to
MS outlook express, which is configured with customer
user ID. It takes GPRS radio communication and Internet
technology to communicate between remote monitoring
computer and field monitoring computer4. M2M gateway
is used to built wireless GPRS networks running
independent of mobile operators. It issues virtual static
IP addresses for remote field devices and sites. Alarm
report is transmitted to GPRS network using M2M
gateway. GPRS network connects Internet. Whenever,
connection is established, report from outlook express is
forwarded to Global response centre / Customer Service
Department. Forwarded information contains all details
pertaining to plant operation alarms. Through Virtual
Private Network (VPN) service5, engineers can view
real time conditions of affected plant area and diagnose
problem remotely for providing solution measures to
plant engineers. Proposed system was successfully
implemented in process control area of a leading MNC.
Conclusions
Industrial process plant can be monitored remotely
by proposed system architecture having GPRS and
wireless Internet connection in conjunction with DCS-
SCADA. It improves reliability, response time, plant
interface under continuous remote real time monitoring
under adverse environmental conditions of process plants
for maximizing plant operational conditions.
Acknowledgements
Protocol Automation Technology, Bangalore, India,
financially supported this project. Authors thank all project
partners for meaningful discussions.
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