Modern Pumping Today magazine recently featured a two-part series authored by Dave Eifert and Eike Wedekind of Phoenix Contact in which they expand on the topic of remote control and remote maintenance. Here is a short excerpt from their Part 1 article and links to the full stories which you can find at www.mptmag.com.
Today, all installations in remote distribution and collection systems, such as water, gas, or electricity supply pipelines or even transportation technology applications, must be connected to a central control system. This allows smaller installations such as pumping stations, transformer stations, or transformer substations to be monitored and controlled remotely. This connection presents new challenges for the technology.
In industrial communication, there is a vast difference between remote control and remote maintenance, even when using identical technology. This often leads to confusion when it comes to selecting the right communication media. The particular features of the different applications are described below.
Recently there has been a clear move away from serial transmission paths toward IP-based communication. Modern communication options such as Internet, VPN, cellular up to 5G are also integrated in remote control technology.
In certain geographic areas, cellular networks can experience intermittent outages. This behavior places new demands on a transmission protocol. It must provide internal security mechanisms to prevent data loss in the network.
Read the full story by using the links below and see the requirements necessary in order to satisfy remote control:
The Water/Wastewater System Manager’s Guide to Remote Telemetry and Remote Maintenance: Part 1 of 2
The Water/Wastewater System Manager’s Guide to Remote Telemetry and Remote Maintenance: Part 2 of 2
