Siemens ST PCS 7 manual Route Control in the engineering system, RC block symbols and faceplates

© Siemens AG 2007

SIMATIC Route Control

Introduction

■Configuration

SIMATIC Route Control is fully integrated in SIMATIC PCS 7 and, thanks to the modular architecture and 3-step scalability (up to 30 / up to 100 / up to 300 simultaneous material transports), can be flexibly adapted to different sizes of plant.

SIMATIC Route Control provides graded user privileges for en- gineering, operating and maintenance personnel who are inte- grated into the user administration with SIMATIC logon. SIMATIC Logon is an integral component of SIMATIC PCS 7.

Route Control in the engineering system

The Route Control Engineering Tool, the Route Control Library and the Route Control Assistant are integrated together with the other engineering tools of the SIMATIC PCS 7 process control system in the central engineering system.

In SIMATIC PCS 7, blocks from the SIMATIC PCS 7 standard li- brary are inserted into CFC plans and connected to plant control blocks in accordance with the technological requirements in or- der to control and monitor the elements of a plant. These individ- ual connections are omitted with SIMATIC Route Control (RC).

You adapt the standard blocks of the technological elements rel- evant to RC (RC elements) using standardized interface blocks from the Route Control library, and allow RC to control and mon- itor the elements during operation. This is of course also possi- ble with existing plantswithout an increased overhead.

The blocks of the Route Control library support redundancy at the controller level. They can be used with standard automation systems or also with fault-tolerant systems or mixed configura- tions. The changes in the engineering system can be recorded (Change log), both in the SIMATIC PCS 7 project and in the RC project.

The Route Control Assistant functions as the interface between the PCS 7 basic configuration expanded by RC components and the RC engineering tool. It analyzes the hardware and soft- ware configuration of the SIMATIC PCS 7 (multi-)project, and generates a database which serves as the basis for further, RC-specific configuration with the RC engineering tool.

During the RC-specific configuration, the elements imported from the SIMATIC PCS 7 project by the Route Control Assistant must be inserted into a sub-route structure. These sub-routes di- vide the plant. The complete routes will be subsequently "joined together" from them during the automatic route searching. The response of the sub-routes in a particular function are already defined when inserting the elements into them. Functions repre- sent the technological requirements when operating the plant (e.g. "Open source", "Pumps" etc.).

As a rule: the more finely divided the sub-route structure, the more flexible the subsequent automatic route searching. With purely static routes, a sub-route can already be a complete route.

Route Control Server/Route Control Center

After the transport network has been configured and the variants of the material transports tested, the Route Control configuration data are transferred to the Route Control Server where they can be activated via the Route Control Center at a suitable time from the process engineering viewpoint. From then onwards, the new data are taken into consideration when searching for the route.

If a material transport is pending during operation, a route (ma- terial transport) is requested by the controller (e.g. using an adapted RC SFC type) or by the operator on the Route Control Center. In addition to definition of the source and target as well as up to 10 optional locations (intermediate points), this also in- cludes the creation of a start signal on the route control block RC_IF_ROUTE in the automation system (AS). The AS "informs" the RC Server which then starts searching for the route and – if possible – combines the statically defined sub-routes into a complete transport route. From this point onward, the Route Control takes over control and monitoring of all RC elements in- volved in the transport route. If faults occur, detailed diagnostics information is provided concerning the cause, e.g. why the

search for a suitable transport route was unsuccessful. The plant 7 control program only switches the individual technological func-

tions, everything else is handled by the Route Control.

The Route Control Server (RC Server) supplies the Route Control Clients (Route Control Center) with the necessary data and transfers their operations to the automation systems.

For maintenance purposes, an automation system can be spe- cifically set to "in maintenance" (out of service). The material transports being carried out by this automation system are still continued until finished. However, new material transports are no longer permitted.

RC block symbols and faceplates

In the process displays of the SIMATIC PCS 7 operator systems, each route block is represented by an RC block symbol and an RC faceplate. Through a route block’s RC block symbol it is pos- sible to select its RC faceplate, and through a route block’s RC faceplate it is possible to select the Route Control Center.

Drop-down lists for location selection

The selection of locations (synonym: nodes) is made simpler in the process display by means of drop-down lists.

Siemens ST PCS 7 · November 2007

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