Patent application number | Description | Published |
20080244044 | Substation automation system with increased availability - In automation systems, such as Substation Automation systems, the mean time to repair is reduced by remote reconfiguration and start-up of a replacement or spare Intelligent Electronic Device (IED), leaving some more hours for the maintenance personnel to repair an inactive or faulty IED. The time for the actual repair is irrelevant for the system availability as long as it is short enough compared to the IED failure rate. Exemplary embodiments can provide nearly the same availability as a hot-standby configuration, but without the need for doubling all the essential IEDs. Additionally, spare IEDs are supervised to be healthy, and a fault of the spare IED being detected before it is put in use. Only one spare online IED is needed for each set of IEDs of the same type connected to the same station bus and process bus. In a retrofit or extension case with limited downtime, a number of previous IEDs can be replaced by an equivalent set of new or real IEDs of a different type, but configured to perform the same functions as the previous IEDs. | 10-02-2008 |
20090005915 | ESTABLISHING SWITCHYARD ZONES OF A HIGH OR MEDIUM VOLTAGE SWITCHYARD - The disclosure relates to minimizing the potential damage caused by the failure of a single central Intelligent Electronic Device (IED) responsible for calculating, assigning and storing information about switchyard zones of a high or medium voltage switchyard comprising switchyard elements interconnected by lines, and wherein the switchyard is operated by means of a Substation Automation system including a plurality of Intelligent Electronic Devices. For example, a distributed switchyard zone management is disclosed, comprising a distributed storage of the knowledge about the switchyard zones. Assignments of individual switchyard elements or components, such as switches and connectivity nodes, to the various switchyard zones are stored on several IEDs. If one of these IEDs fails, the services or applications based on switchyard zones thus are not necessarily doomed, as would be the case if the entire knowledge about switchyard zones were stored on one single central IED. | 01-01-2009 |
20100020724 | METHOD OF CONFIGURING AN INTELLIGENT ELECTRONIC DEVICE - Substation automation (SA) systems are disclosed such as systems for configuring an International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 61850 standard-compliant Intelligent Electronic Device (IED) in a SA system. A proxy IED is a NCC gateway device enhanced for converting data between non-IEC 61850 and IEC 61850 communication protocols. Proxy IED is configured, based on a set of mappings, which are coded in the SA configuration description (SCD) file. The SCD file can include mappings for data conversion between non-IEC 61850 and IEC 61850 communication protocols. | 01-28-2010 |
20100039954 | ANALYZING COMMUNICATION CONFIGURATION IN A PROCESS CONTROL SYSTEM - An analysis of a communication configuration in a process control (PC) or substation automation (SA) system is disclosed, wherein network messages, and/or respective message sources, configured for transmission across a communication network of the system can be evaluated. From a logical data flow description that is part of a standardized configuration representation of the PC or SA system and which includes, in the form of control blocks, formal information for every message, receiver intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) can be retrieved or determined. For each retrieved receiver IED, the totality of all network messages destined for or directed to this particular receiver IED can be evaluated or processed (e.g. in view of a subsequent network load analysis, virtual local area network assignment, or graphical display of the data flow). Exemplary network messages of interest include cyclic point-to-point reports, periodic or repeated real-time multicast messages (Sampled Values SV) and event-based multicast messages (generic object oriented substation events GOOSE). | 02-18-2010 |
20100040068 | CONFIGURATION OF A PROCESS CONTROL SYSTEM - Exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure automatically generate Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) configuration data from a logical data flow between intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) of a process control (PC) system in accordance with a standardized configuration representation of the system. The process IEDs, switches of an Ethernet switch-based communication network to which the IEDs are connected, and connecting cables are made aware of the assigned VLANs. Any performance analysis or diagnosis on these components can show design problems with VLANs and communication architecture already at engineering or communication system design time. | 02-18-2010 |
20100110904 | IDENTIFYING IMPROPER CABLING OF DEVICES - A system and method are disclosed for identifying an improper cabling of control system devices connected to redundant communication networks of a distributed control system, such as a substation automation system. As proposed in the standard IEC 62439 (Parallel Redundancy Protocol PRP), messages including a sender identification or source address as well as network or associated device port identification can be transmitted from a sending device to a receiving device over redundant networks. The receiving or destination device can determine a connect status indicating whether or not a message has been received on a particular device port, as well as an error event indicating whether or not the device port is associated to the network identified in the received message. By doing so for at least two distinct sending devices, an improper communication path between two devices can be diagnosed and an indication can be produced as to the location and/or type of wrong cabling. Single error events can be supplanted by error rates calculated as a probability of receiving messages on a device port not associated to the network identified in the received message and compared to error thresholds for the purpose of identifying improper cabling. | 05-06-2010 |
20100204948 | SYSTEM LEVEL TESTING FOR SUBSTATION AUTOMATION SYSTEMS - Protection, measurement and control IEDs in a substation compute if switches they control may be operated safely, according to interlocking rules or physical principles as well as the dynamic topology of the substation. The IEDs have access to the substation electrical topology, to real-time information generated by other IEDs, and to the rules for interlocking. A standardized Substation Configuration Description (SCD) of the substation for which a Substation Automation system is intended, and a standardized description of the implemented device functions or capabilities of an individual IED are utilized. The substation topology is available from SCD file, real time information about the position of switches and line voltage/current can be obtained via an appropriate protocol, and the interlocking rules are available in script form. These features apply both to simulated and real devices, and increase system testing possibilities by supporting an efficient configuration of a simulation. | 08-12-2010 |
20100325304 | INTER-BAY SUBSTATION AUTOMATION APPLICATION - The present disclosure is directed to an exemplary interface description or structure of an inter-bay Substation Automation (SA) application. The interface of the application to other elements of the SA system, for example to a bay controller, IED, OPC server, HMI, and/or gateway, is examined to fully automate the inter-bay SA application configuration and implementation. A formal description or structure of the base SA system as for example, including an IEC 61850 SCD file can be used to generate a formal description of the interfaces of the inter-bay SA application to be engineered. Logical nodes can be connected to the process single line diagram and integrated into the SCD file of the base SA system, thereby generating an enhanced SCD file. | 12-23-2010 |
20110029149 | DETERMINING A BUS BAR VOLTAGE - A Substation Automation (SA) system in high or medium voltage power networks is provided for determining a bus bar voltage at a first node. The disclosure replaces a ‘real’ voltage transformer with an intelligent electronic device (IED) and/or a ‘virtual’ voltage transformer (VT), which determines the bus bar voltage at the first node from a first bay connected to the first node. The IED receives network message from a second IED of the SA system, indicating the bay voltage of the first bay connected to the first node. The IED also receives switch status of the switching device arranged between the first bay and the first node, from a third IED. Depending upon the switch status, the IED establishes the bay voltage as the bus bar voltage at the first node. | 02-03-2011 |
20110047264 | ANALYZING A COMMUNICATION PERFORMANCE OF AN IED - A communication stack performance of an Intelligent Electronic Device (IED) is analyzed in a communication network of a Substation Automation (SA) system. The IED processes network messages that are transferred with, or belonging to, a specific configurable SA communication service. A plurality of application level scenarios corresponding to a high communication load is executed. Among all network messages captured or intercepted during the scenario, the network messages destined to the IED and sent by the IED in response are identified. A number of the identified messages, a number of specific communication protocol elements or data items related to a service-specific property, and a number of changed protocol elements, which are indicative of an SA event, for which the value of the data item has changed compared to the value of the same data item in a previous message, are determined. An IED-intrinsic processing time of the identified messages is likewise determined, based on which parameter values of a service specific processing time model are calculated. | 02-24-2011 |
20110286350 | COMMUNICATION METHOD AND SYSTEM - Exemplary embodiments increase reliability of communication over a non-deterministic communication channel, in electric power systems. A communication channel is monitored based on regular network traffic, by evaluating messages or data packets carrying real-time operational data as a payload. A permanent determination of a channel quality, including appropriate alarming in case the channel quality is found insufficient, is based on an evaluation, at a receiving node, of data packets continually transmitted by a sending node. These continually or repeatedly transmitted data packets can include identical payloads reflecting current states rather than state changes as operational data. | 11-24-2011 |
20110320058 | IMPLEMENTING SUBSTATION AUTOMATION LOAD TRANSFER FUNCTION - A process of implementing, or engineering, topology-dependent functions based on a formal description of the Substation Automation system, includes performing a topology analysis of the current single line state. A topology interpreting implementation replacing complex topology analysis logics can include the project specific static single line topology and the connection to the real process state data. All information can be delivered in an IEC 61850 conforming SCD file. The interface description for controlling and monitoring the load transfer application can be generated automatically from the SCD file. | 12-29-2011 |
20120140367 | PROTECTION LOCKOUT IN SUBSTATION AUTOMATION - Exemplary embodiments are directed to engineering of protection lockout functionality in a Substation Automation (SA) system. The system includes a breaker IED having protection-zone related intelligence in a lockout function block lockout function instances are assigned to respective protection zones, and are specified for each protection function which protection-zone(s) it shall trip and reset after lockout. Hence for switch yard configurations and power networks where a protection function trips multiple breakers by using several bay control or protection devices a more efficient implementation of lockout functionality is possible. | 06-07-2012 |
20120198226 | CHECKING A CONFIGURATION MODIFICATION FOR AN IED - Exemplary embodiments are directed to a system and method of checking, during regular operation of a Process Control PC or Substation Automation SA system, an intended configuration modification for a mission-critical IED. The IED receives, from an authenticated requestor, a modification request directed to IED configuration, parameter or setting data. The IED then checks the requested configuration modification, and rejects it in case no approval or confirmation is made by an approver independent of the requestor, and otherwise accepts and implements. The IED authenticates the approver prior to receiving the request, and stores, in a local memory, a configuration modification plausibility check provided by the approver. The stored plausibility check is then performed, by a plausibility checking unit, on the intended modification, and the latter is rejected or approved based on a result of the stored plausibility check when applied to specific circumstances of the configuration modification request. | 08-02-2012 |
20120226386 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR POWER MANAGEMENT - A method and a system for power management for a plant electrical network are provided. The power management system over a plant-wide communication network includes both concepts of hierarchical level and distributed level power management using multiple controllers. At least one controller in the power management system is configured for power management in a first local process area within the plant electrical network and is capable to communicate with at least a second controller configured for power management in a second local process area within the plant electrical network over the communication network. | 09-06-2012 |
20120233296 | IEC 61850 SUBSTATION GATEWAY - An IEC 61850 Network Control Center (NCC) server is provided at a gateway intelligent electronic device (IED) of a Substation Automation (SA) system. The NCC server serves, via the MMS/TCP/IP part of IEC 61850, process data from substation Intelligent Electronic Devices IEDs to a NCC. The NCC server uses functional names for gateway Logical Nodes (LN) corresponding to substation LNs. The functional names are devoid of any reference to a substation IED related name of the substation LNs, but can be automatically translated to substation IED related names in case of changing SA communication and substation IED architecture. Thereby, functional names as defined by the substation section within a SCD file of the SA system are used for the communication link between the gateway IED and the NCC. | 09-13-2012 |
20120239170 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ENGINEERING A SUBSTATION AUTOMATION SYSTEM - A method for engineering and configuration of one or more IEDs for a function in a substation automation system is disclosed. Also disclosed is a configuration wizard for implementing the method. The method includes creating pre-defined type definitions for an application function, providing a selectable menu for selection of appropriate parameters with respect to the application. Using these parameters and the pre-defined type definitions. The method includes creating process configuration outputs for the application function, and configuring the one or more IEDs based on the process configuration outputs. | 09-20-2012 |
20120239216 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DISTRIBUTED POWER MANAGEMENT - A method and system for distributed power management with individual IEDs in a substation are disclosed. An exemplary technique can include providing multiple IEDs in a power network in the substation and integrating an intrinsic load shedding function in each IED. The technique can include identifying a power imbalance state at an individual IED and load shedding the individual IED using an intrinsic load shedding function when a power imbalance state is identified in a coordinated manner to achieve distributed power management in the substation. | 09-20-2012 |
20120239320 | RELIABILITY CALCULATION FOR SUBSTATION AUTOMATION SYSTEMS - A method and device automatically extract, to a maximum extent, reliability-relevant information from a Substation Configuration Description (SCD) file describing an electric power transmission or distribution substation. The information in the SCD file is used to identify the physical topology of a communication network of a Substation Automation (SA) system, and all dataflow relating to a given SA functionality or Logical Node (LN). An LN reliability measure for the latter is calculated, involving reliability indications specific to each element or device participating in the dataflow. A number of LN reliability measures are consolidated to produce an overall reliability for the SA system architecture or communication network topology. The method and tool minimize the engineering effort required to perform a reliability calculation, and thus allow comparing the reliability of different SA architectures with minimal effort and intervention of a reliability engineer. | 09-20-2012 |
20130031164 | METHOD FOR TRANSFER OF CONTROL BETWEEN DEVICES IN A SUBSTATION SYSTEM AND A DEVICE THEREOF - An exemplary method and system are disclosed for coordinated transfer of control in a substation system having IED or logical devices/servers using GOOSE messages with preconfigured data models with logical nodes containing one or more data objects including private data objects (DO) connected in the substation communication network. The method for transfer of control can be illustrated for hot-standby device management and for other applications such as logical isolation of merging unit in a substation and load sharing between IEDs. The method can be used for devices that do not have MMS stack. | 01-31-2013 |
20130117421 | DETERMINING VLAN-IDs FOR A SWITCHED-BASED COMMUNICATION NETWORK OF A PROCESS CONTROL SYSTEM - A Process Control (PC) or Substation Automation (SA) system is disclosed with appropriate message filtering based on Virtual Local Area Network identifiers VLAN-IDs as communication sub-network identifiers. The VLAN-IDs are determined in order to optimize data flow in the sense that receiver IEDs only receive the intended messages, while at the same time the number of sub-network identifiers can be reduced to a maximum extent. Restricting the real time traffic in such a way can ensure proper operation of the systems, such as large SA systems using GOOSE for interlocking and having sensors connected with the Sampled Value (SV) protocol according to IEC 61850-9-2. | 05-09-2013 |
20130215771 | ANALYZING COMMUNICATION CONFIGURATION IN A PROCESS CONTROL SYSTEM - Each network message configured for transmission from a sender to a receiver IED across an Ethernet switch-based communication network of a PC/SA system is evaluated, and a graphical representation respective of process related operational aspects of each IED involved is generated and displayed. Sender and receiver IDs are determined from a logical data flow description that is part of a formal configuration representation of the PC/SA system. One of a plurality of operational aspects of the process is retrieved for each IED from the formal configuration description. Generating the graphical representation of the system includes forming groups of IEDs with identical operational aspects. For each group of IEDs, the respective operational aspect is indicated or displayed. A user may analyze the communication configuration of the system by looking at the graphical representation and determine the consequences of IED failures or engineering errors on other IEDs. | 08-22-2013 |
20130235764 | VALIDATING REACHABILITY OF NODES OF A NETWORK OF AN INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION AND CONTROL SYSTEM - A device validates reachability of nodes of a communication network of an industrial automation and control system. The device includes a collector module configured to update a data set including discovered dataflow information by detecting direct neighbour nodes having a physical connection to a selected node, and updating the data set by adding the selected node and those direct neighbour nodes which have configured logical network constraints matching logical network constraints of the selected node. The device includes a repeater module configured to repeat the selecting of a direct neighbour node in the data set and directing the collector module to update the data set using the selected direct neighbour node. The device includes a validation module configured to validate reachability of nodes of the network by comparing the data set with a data set including designed dataflow information which defines reachability requirements for nodes of the communication network. | 09-12-2013 |
20140184405 | GENERATING SUM ALARMS IN PROCESS CONTROL - A method and sum alarm server are disclosed, which generate a sum alarm for alarms of a process control system for an industrial plant. The method includes identifying alarms described by a configuration description for the industrial plant; assigning each identified alarm to a plant level; assigning each identified alarm to an alarm category based on an alarm type retrieved from the configuration description; and deriving a sum alarm per alarm category and at a selected plant level from all alarms assigned to the alarm category and assigned to the selected plant level or to any plant level below. | 07-03-2014 |
20140303784 | SUBSTATION AUTOMATION SYSTEM WITH DYNAMIC MULTICAST FILTER - Exemplary embodiments provide substation automation systems for operating a high or medium voltage substation for an electric power transmission or distribution network. The substation automation system includes a multitude of secondary devices, which transmit and receive data from/to each other via multicast packets. The secondary devices include packet filters, which are adapted to be set up dynamically during the runtime of the substation automation system, in order to update the rules for forwarding multicast packets received from the station bus system to the application running on the secondary devices. | 10-09-2014 |
20140304403 | VALIDATION OF A COMMUNICATION NETWORK OF AN INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION AND CONTROL SYSTEM - A unit is disclosed for validating a communication network of an industrial automation and control system. The validation unit can include a planner module configured to store plan data defining a designed communication network of an industrial automation and control system, and a collector module configured to collect effective data defining a deployed communication network of the industrial automation and control system. A difference detector can detect differences between the designed communication network and the deployed communication network using the plan data and the effective data such that faults or errors in a deployed communication network of the industrial automation and control system can be efficiently detected. | 10-09-2014 |
20140328213 | ANALYSING DATA COMMUNICATION IN A PROCESS CONTROL OR SUBSTATION AUTOMATION SYSTEM - A method, an engineering tool, and a computer program element for analyzing a communication of secondary devices in a Substation Automation System for a substation are disclosed. The secondary devices are connected to a communication network for controlling an industrial process, which industrial process can include a plurality of operational aspects of primary devices. Sender secondary devices are configured to send data packets, which can include a multitude of data objects, to predetermined receiver secondary devices via the communication network, wherein the data packets transmitted via the communication network are captured, a functional interrelation or operational aspect of the secondary devices and the primary devices is retrieved from an SCD-file representing the formal configuration of the substation is retrieved, and the secondary devices are grouped according to the retrieved operational aspect and a time sorted graphical representation of the data objects, the secondary devices and the operational aspects is generated. | 11-06-2014 |