An implementation of a SCADA system based on TCP/IP protocol stack and internet

Abstract

Nowadays, the Internet has been being in large use for industrial purposes. In the industrial sector, SCADA systems are the most popular processes. Communication range and data transfer speed have been raised as the most outstanding problems. There have been several researches proposed recently, but the problem of data transfer speed, system flexibility and security still remains unsolved or not completely solved. In this research, the proposed solution is given based on the concept of a special hardware module called Ethernet IO and a web-based application. The system application software interface is accessed as a website. Internet became the communication network. The two basic functions of every SCADA system which are data acquisition and supervisory control have been covered. The use of the Internet and the Ethernet IO board provides additional functions as discussed in details in the contents of the research. The hardware devices in the system are simulated using Visual C# and Matlab. The proposed solution allows system users to interact with the system using Internet browsers via Internet at any time and from any where. Test results have shown that all the system functionalities have been achieved in the way that users can monitor system’s data and issue control commands on devices in a real-time manner. The presence of Internet promises to give a low-cost feature to the solution while still ensuring the system’s criteria. The security issue is considered carefully and the implementation cost estimation is also given. This search is limited with the simulation scheme in order to demonstrate the ability of utilizing the Internet in SCADA system. Recommendations for applications and future works on this research are given in details in the last part of this research.