Industrial Control Communications: An Introduction to SCADA
The term SCADA stands for Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition. A SCADA system is a common process automation system which is used to gather data from sensors and instruments located at remote sites and to transmit and display this data at a central site for either control or monitoring purposes. The collected data is usually viewed on one or more SCADA Host computers located at the central or master site. A real world SCADA system can monitor and control hundreds to hundreds of thousands of I/O points. A typical Water SCADA application would be to monitor water levels at various water sources like reservoirs and tanks and when the water level exceeds a preset threshold, activate the system of pumps to move water to tanks with low tank levels. common analog signals that SCADA systems monitor and control are levels, temperatures, pressures, flow rate and motor speed. Typical digital signals to monitor and control are level switches, pressure switches, generator status, relays & motors.