(SCADA) System for the Centralized Traffic Control (CTC)
Contents
1. no abnormality was reported by the Rail Traffic Controller The unhealthy condition of the power switch would not likely be identified until the next routine maintenance check is performed As such this is a good illustration of the value of what a CTC SCADA system can offer DIDAK 11 54 TR Foe e000 20 41 Ps 00 13 0Sa LOO 08 49 Sere yeaa OB AHI Eee 17 00 Tenit 21 009 E n osizai0 Feet Kanmi EN J700 cosvearo0 14 0700 ORO Fae ah ean 201400 eae Den T0 ly _ FU rad Figure 3 Current signatures of a power switch with water infiltration Similar to the above example there were also other defects spotted through the CTC SCADA system on other power switches being monitored namely E Defective commutator brush E Position rod out of adjustment and E Unstable stock rail Operation Duty Cycle In addition to the current signatures the CTC SCADA also provides statistical data of the frequency of the power switch throws For instance Figure 4 shows the switch viewer of the CTC SCADA of which the 7 days statistical records of a particular switch are shown along with current signature Through these data it was revealed that the utilization of the power switches could vary significantly Some switch could have 20 25 throws per day while an adjacent switch only has 1 3 throws per week Such information could lead to the development of new maintenance and inspection programs based on equipment utilization Contrary to2. of building the prototype and its monitoring results are also described It is demonstrated through the power switch example that the health conditions of these field equipment can be effectively monitored such that proactive measures can be carried out to avoid major repair costs or service interruption More importantly the success of the prototype development provide many insights and experiences of applying the SCADA and health monitoring technologies in the railroad industry to enhance performance and reduce costs ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The authors would like to thank Messrs Yves Langis Martin Fortier and Michel Geneau of the S amp C Maintenance Force in the Montreal area and Mr Les Kulasza of ERC in Winnepeg for their enthusiasm and dedicated services which made the deployment of the prototype units and the experiments on the power switches highly successful REFERENCES 1 J W M Cheng Power Switch Health Monitoring using Motor Current Signatures AREMA Conference Proceedings Baltimore September 1999 2 Campbell Scientific CR10X Measurement and Control Module Operator s Manual Rev 5 97 3 National Instrument BridgeVIEW User Manual 1998
3. such that automatic diagnoses of power operated switches can be provided to the maintenance crew on a daily basis e Power Supply The CTC SCADA shall be able to monitor the AC and DC power supplies in CTC bungalows such that the service continuity power quality backup battery reserves and readiness can be measured and recorded for operation as well as for planning purposes e Track Circuits DC and coded track circuits shall also be monitored such that the effects of climatic changes on track ballast resistivity can be monitored As such methodology or devices can be designed to adjust the track circuits automatically to compensate for ballast resistivity swings 2 Reducing Maintenance Costs and Optimizing Maintenance Schedule Presently the CTC plants require a labour intensive maintenance program to ensure safety and service reliability By introducing a CTC SCADA system certain critical equipment shall be monitored and evaluated automatically on a continuous manner Subsequently existing maintenance procedures can be simplified and their associated maintenance schedules can be optimized without jeopardizing safety and performance reliability For instance the maintenance schedule can be organized on a utilization rate basis instead of the conventional periodic basis Capturing Intermittent Problems Intermittent problems such as temporary loss of shunt unexpected loss of a clear signal are common in CTC field equipment
4. the periodic maintenance program e g monthly inspection presently used such new programs could be more cost effective and flexible An analogy of this is to have a car checked every 8 000 km or 3 months of driving which ever comes first tes SHSSp36S auto vi ST HYACINTHFE SIIR Mila 55 36 B Engine Manager CTC_SCADA scf SWITCH_VIEWER T x Engine Status N Ton Temperature Running Logging Historical Data Logging Events Pari Event 5 eighbo 447 Server Browser ON T Bee sow a KN10P33 07 30 00 at 21 39 77 MO6BPI16 Signatures 07 30 00 at 05 16 07 30 00 at 04 09 07 30 00 at 01 05 07 29 00 at 02 50 07 29 00 at 01 57 89 07 29 00 at 00 59 07 28 00 at 21 05 07 28 00 at 20 57 07 28 00 at 12 19 7 Day History 98 02 00 08 01 00 07 31 00 PRINT 07 30 00 07 29 00 PRINT DAY 07 27 00 RETURN 12 26AM 08 00 PM 12 26AM 08 00 PM 12 25 AM 07 26 07 27 07 26 07 27 08 02 Reg MO6P16 MOBP23 KN10P33 SH55p36N SH55p365 Figure 4 CTC SCADA power switch current signature viewer Battery Charging Discharging Monitoring Figure Z shows a historical plot of the charging and discharging current of the B12 battery bank in a bungalow over a period of 10 days Even though the samples are taken on an hourly basis it is clear from this graphical display that the charging current has a spurious nature which corresponds to the nature of how the charger works On the contrary the discharge current di
5. CTC SCADA Motor Current Signature Analysis MCSA Equipment Health Monitoring INTRODUCTION Today major railway networks are equipped with Centralized Traffic Control CTC systems to provide the facilities and means to monitor and control train traffic in a safe and coordinated manner Typical CTC systems include numerous field equipment e g power switches and track circuits of which require many labor intensive procedures and repetitive inspection programs to maintain In the event of any force outages caused by equipment failures fatigue or adverse weather conditions there could be significant downtimes and repair costs incurred due to traveling troubleshooting repair replacement and overtime charges To improve the productivity of maintaining the CTC field equipment as well as to provide the highest level of performance reliability a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition SCADA system designed for the CTC field equipment is envisioned to be an essential tool for the railroad maintenance work force Such a tool not only can provide continuous monitoring of the equipment but also can lead to the development of an optimal maintenance program which will eventually improve productivity as well as service reliability An investigation of how to apply the latest SCADA technology to monitor the health of critical CTC field equipment was initiated at Canadian National Railway CNR in 1998 and this paper describes the vision design
6. Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition SCADA System For The Centralized Traffic Control CTC Equipment John W M Cheng Rick Porath Micheal Kadour Canadian National Railway University of Waterloo 14 FI 935 de La Gauchetiere West Waterloo Ontario Montreal Quebec Canada Canada H3B 2M9 email mjkadour uwaterloo ca e mail john cheng cn ca rick porath cn ca ABSTRACT Modern railway networks are equipped with Centralized Traffic Control CTC systems to facilitate train traffic control Due to the variety and large number of such CTC field equipment railway companies rely on various labor intensive and highly repetitive maintenance programs to ensure safe and reliable services To improve the productivity of such maintenance activities as well as to provide the highest level of service reliability a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition SCADA system for the CTC field equipment is envisioned to be an essential tool for the maintenance work force This paper presents the vision concept and the prototype development of a SCADA system designed to monitor different CTC field equipment for the Signals and Communications S amp C maintenance work force Using the prototype CTC SCADA system performance information of the power switches track circuits battery conditions and relay contact positions can be monitored locally or remotely The experiences of implementation and monitoring results are presented and discussed Key Words
7. These problems are usually hard to re produce However with a CTC SCADA system its data acquisition and recording capability can be used to monitor problematic site s such that any abnormality and unfavorable conditions will be captured as they happen An analogy of this is the SCADA system shall resemble the black box data recording device commonly used in the airline industry Subsequently troubleshooting and analysis time will be reduced and problem identification may be expedited Environment Monitoring and Controls Indoor and outdoor temperature readings collected by the CTC SCADA system shall provide the necessary information to assess or even to adjust the environmental controls of the bungalows namely air conditioners and or heaters Weather related information collected can also be used to control the snow clearing devices used alone side with some power switches As a result the CTC SCADA system not only can conserve energy but also extend the longevity of the equipment Improving Response Time and Associated Cost for Remote CTC Plants Some CTC sites are remote with little or no road accessibility In these cases the most time consuming part is the travel A CTC SCADA system shall provide real time as well as historical data to the maintainer technician via a phone or the company network such that historic information diagnostics and corrective actions e g resetting the component may be initiated promptly Subsequently i
8. ample external interface capabilities for different signals As such varied input configurations are possible For example the same logger can be configured to monitor up to 12 power switches using single ended mode or 6 isolated voltage measurements using differential mode The sampling rate of individual channels is also configurable For this application sample rates ranging from 100 Hz burst mode recording to hourly readings have been used With these transducers signals conditioners and the data logger a variety of signals can be captured and converted into digital form ready for transmission Communications For the high density track areas e g yard entrance the regular dial up phone system is used This allows for the least expensive and simplest way of communications However since a lot of the CTC bungalows are not necessarily equipped with phone service cellular phones are also used With the rapidly expanding cellular networks this mode of communication becomes the most affordable and attractive solution for the communication part Furthermore due to the local storage capability of the data logger the periodicity of the communications between the sites and the office can be programmed to suit the types of applications as well as to minimize air time charges For instance the office system communicates with the sites on an hourly basis and collects all stored data on a daily basis The average air time per call is less than a mi
9. ber of manual requests at anytime with no concern of communication traffic Communication failures are logged also to indicate any potential problems The database is ODBC compliant and thus fully accessible though many other major software packages such as MS Access or MS Excel Human Interface Using the graphical user interface tools provided by the SCADA software the following user interface screens are created to assist the users to view the status and conditions of the field equipment They are a System Overview LA 7 e SWITCH_VIEWER MONTREAL SUB Mile 6 23 Casing 12 undated d T HISTORY Temperature 50 0 CONFIG 40 0 30 0 DOWN SNAP 20 0 01 12 AM 07 26 50 EXIT so 100 150 200 0 00 Value Alarm SAck Status Priority Alarm Limit AStart QJ Exploring QY Exploring g Netscape RECNINET W Microsoft Bridgeview _ ESSystem BVENGINE BEngineMa ALAR 1124M Figure 2 CTC SCADA interface of a cut case e Individual Site Overviews The site overview window is designed to present the user with the current status of the individual bungalow Figure 2 is the Site Overview of the cut case shown in Figure 1 It includes displays of remote site data an alarm window a status bar and a menu to navigate the system All steady state signals are shown in the display windows along with the internal temperature last update time and status lights for alarms and communicatio
10. ce the desired signals to be monitored might be currents temperatures or high voltages signal transducers and conditioning devices are required In this development a set of voltage isolation amplifiers were designed and built so that a large range of voltages e g 2 300 V can be measured Furthermore Hall effect current transducers up to 50 A were also used to provide a non intrusive type of monitoring capability In fact the non intrusive current sensors were extensively used throughout the development because they provide a much safer means of monitoring set up and a much easier way to install Since the applications of the system are varied flexibility is crucial for the data logger A commercial data logger 2 with multiple input channels was selected for this application This data logger is not only compact and designed for a wide operating temperature 55 C to 80 C but also is highly programmable Programming can even be performed remotely using an external modem The logger is capable of recording based on a pre defined triggering condition a periodic sequence or a user request As events occur the logger stores the data locally Currently 62 000 data records are allow which can accommodate several days of recording for a site with up to 10 power switches These recordings are then transmitted to the office either on a periodic or upon request basis Along with the versatile programming capability the data logger provide an
11. lop automatic tools to diagnose power switch and coded track problems The following section will describe in more details on the analysis part RESULTS AND EXPERIENCES The CTC SCADA project was initiated in late 1998 and the first prototype was designed assembled and deployed by the summer of 1999 Five units of the prototypes were eventually built by the year end of 1999 and four of them are currently installed with the fifth unit acting as a development unit The configuration of the four sites are summarized in Table 1 Tablel Summary of CTC SCADA PROTOTYPE DEPLOYMENT o o o se o oe eroso a a a o ee o o a o are enn owm ooa Power Switch Defects Figure 3 shows a series of current signatures captured by the CTC SCADA system on one of the power switches being monitored It is apparent that the current signatures on this particular switch have changed drastically between 21 5 and 22 5 Not only the duration of the throws was extended but also the amplitudes of the current had increased significantly and also fluctuated violently The maintenance personnel was immediately called to check out the switch and it was found that there was major water infiltration in the power switch compartment It is abnormal that this kind of water infiltration to happen because the power switches are normally sealed and routinely checked The problem was caused by the deterioration of the seal and a major rainfall in the area In this example
12. n In addition a historical recording of individual data base points can also be plotted on this window for examination Historical Data Trending As data is collected periodically from the remote site it is stored in a real time database The historical trend viewer interacts with this database to construct fully scalable interpolated charts of any field data Alarm Notification and Acknowledgment If any data point enters an alarm state 1 e a falling battery voltage several indicators are available to notify the user First if the site is currently being viewed a display light will flash bright red Second the alarm window will contain an entry for the data point Lastly an audible sound will emit every 15 seconds These indicators will persist until the user manually acknowledges the alarm User acknowledgment will silence the audible alarm however the other indicators stop only after the data point returns to normal operating conditions The alarm acknowledgment window can also be seen on the left corner of Figure 2 Analysis Tools Once data is gathered to the office any number of things can happen Depending on what is being monitored a variety of signal specific analysis tools can be created These might be health condition checks both manually or automatically or statistical analyses The real benefits of the CTC SCADA system will probably be realized in this analysis stage At the present time the concentration is to deve
13. nute Office Controls The office controls is a PC based system running a commercially available SCADA software 3 This software provides all the basic functionalities of a SCADA systems namely communications data processing alarms historic recording analysis packages and graphical displays and controls After installing the data logger at the site the corresponding site configuration is entered into the CTC SCADA data base Typical site information includes site name signal names polling periodicity transient capture duration and local phone number A custom made server program was developed for this CTC SCADA application This server program acts as a background process which is responsible to communicate with all the sites automatically and also to process any manual request from the user For example the server itself is a queuing system that controls the use of the communication port which is connected to a modem Whenever automatic timed polling occurs or a user manually initiates a poll the request is queued The server monitors the queue and makes the corresponding connections to the remote sites The designed system is capable of three types of remote processes snapshots downloads and site configuration Snapshot is for uploading the instantaneous steady state signals downloads are for the stored transient recordings and site configuration is for re configuring the remote site With a queued architecture the user can issue any num
14. performance of the new and existing systems especially when there is a train on the bridge can be studied a SH55p36N_auto vi ST HYACINTNE SUB Mile 55 36 Beloeil Bridge North Rail Last updated a Temperature 50 NO2 NORTH RAIL OPEN PROX 44 7 252 0 0 2 o 37 40 DOWN 40 0 i 3 SNAP 35 3 4 50 oo t N z 12 25 AM 08 00 PM Iz 29AM Te 28 AM 08 00 PM i CONFIG 07 26 07 27 08 02 07 26 07 27 z NO3 NORTH RAIL STUCK PROX HISTORY N 0 0 1 3 1 34 J a o 12 29AM 08 00 PM 12 29AM 1225 AM 08 00 PM 1229AM 07 726 07 27 08 02 07 26 07 27 NOO NORTH RAIL CONELY CLOSED NLPR BRIDGE REQUEST CLOSE BUM i 1 EUN 1 3 1 1 344 12 25 AM 08 00 PM 12 29 4M 12 25 AM 08 o0 PM 12 29AM 07 26 07 27 08 02 07726 07727 08 02 NO1 NORTH RAIL CONLEY OPENED x SLPR BRIDGE REQUEST OPEN 0 0 O0 kN d N 0 0 D 0 0 1229AM 08 00 PM 1229 AM 12 29AM 08 00 PM 12 29AM 07 26 07727 08 02 07 26 07 27 08 02 AStart Y Expl Bridge GSHS BVENG Engish E kni ES mos ES mos QJ Expl I Micr 5 Net prcni Hist PNI oag 12 29 4M Figure 6 CTC SCADA interface for bridge monitoring CONCLUSIONS The initiative and vision of a CTC SCADA system designed to improve CTC field equipment reliability are presented in this paper A prototype system using only off the shelf products was also designed implemented and deployed for different monitoring purposes The experiences
15. philosophy and the implementation experiences of a CTC SCADA prototype system CTC SCADA A VISION The CTC SCADA system proposed in this paper is designed for and will be used by the Signals and Communications S amp C front line maintenance work force on a regular basis The main goal of the CTC SCADA is to facilitate the health monitoring of critical CTC field equipment in a cost effective and proactive manner such that the reliability of services will be improved To this purpose a CTC SCADA system is envisioned to have the following objectives 1 Improving Equipment Reliability Through Equipment Health Monitoring The health condition of critical CTC equipment shall be monitored continuously by the SCADA system such that any apparent degradation of performance or defect can be detected prior to actual failures Automatic health check programs within the SCADA system shall analyze the collected data to generate appropriate alarms and or warning messages to alert the maintenance personnel As such proactive actions or preventive maintenance can be carried out to avoid major damage to equipment or to mitigate any damage Some of the potential areas of application include e Power operated Switches It has been shown in 1 that Motor Current Signature Analysis MCSA techniques can be used to monitor and diagnose the health of power switches The CTC SCADA shall apply the same methodology to collect store and analyze the current signatures
16. splays a much more constant load pattern which is also expected From these data it can be seen that the charging and discharging patterns can easily be used as a means to monitor the health of the battery bank the charger the total load and even any ground fault conditions For example the energy pumping into the battery should be fairly constant and comparable with the energy taken out by the load Historical Trend Viewer File Viewer Help JKN10P33 KN10P33 Fs 3 M Running 20 20 KN1OP33_E KN1OP33_E lt ee nn no 23 39 24 23 39 24 07 17 2000 _k fcc lt gt gt gt ot tive 07 27 2000 Timespan 240 00 00 z 06 51 24 16 27 24 Data Display 07 21 2000 07 24 2000 KN10P33_BATCHG 0 16 58 33 93 20 2000 _ SNT0PS3_BATLOD 23 39 24 08 01 2000 Astart QJ Expl Bridgev ESHS BVENG Beng ESHS Ekm E mo ES mo Gy E pl I Micr janet RA CNi ni Figure 5 CTC SCADA interface for battery bank discharge and charging conditions Available Data Swing Bridge Monitoring Figure 6 shows a group of indications which in fact represents numerous statuses of a swing bridge near Montreal As part of the evaluation of a new proximity sensor based detection system used to replace the SCC boxes on the bridge statuses of the proximity sensors and the existing SCC boxes are collected by a CTC SCADA unit and telemetered to Montreal for monitoring purposes As such the
17. t will reduce the downtimes and any associated costs 6 Centralized Reporting Capability The accumulated data from the CTC SCADA system shall be collected at a centralized location which can then be easily assembled sorted and eventually used for different planning equipment availability statistics strategic planning and archiving purposes by different groups within the company The above mentioned objectives are not necessary complete but will serve as the framework of what the CTC SCADA system shall encompass Based on these objectives a prototype was developed at CNR and the following sections describe the experience of the development DESIGN CONSTRAINTS AND CRITERIA There are three main constraints associated with the nature of this SCADA system First since there are numerous state variables that may be of interest in a CTC bungalow the sampling mode and frequency could have a wide range For instance some state variables such as temperature and battery voltage are in general a steady state variable In other words they don t vary too much in a short time e g within seconds However the power switch current signatures 1 are in general a transient variable because they happen randomly and only lasts a few seconds As a result a versatile data acquisition system will be required to accommodate different forms of signals Secondly due to the large number of CTC bungalows or cut cases that have to be monitored the cost of
18. the selected data acquisition equipment must be economical and cost effective Thirdly the means of communication also posts a challenge because not only its cost is an important issue but also the availability and coverage of the communication networks may also post a formidable challenge to many sites In view of these constraints the following design criteria were adopted to develop the prototype system e To provide maximum versatility of the CTC SCADA system the selected equipment shall be a general purpose data acquisition system of which it can support multiple data triggering modes as well as different sampling frequencies Furthermore its capabilities shall also include local storage such that any transient and steady state recordings can be retained locally and retrieved at will To reduce equipment and development costs all hardware and software used shall be readily available commercially As such development costs shall be minimized As a starting point the commercial phone system i e wired and cell shall be the means of communications for the prototype development to optimize cost and coverage issues PROTOTYPE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION The basic design was comprised of three major parts namely Data Acquisition Communications and Office Controls Figure 1 shows a typical installation of the CTC SCADA system in a cut case tt X Figure 1 CTC SCADA prototype in a cut case Data Acquisition Sin
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