ADESBA - A new general global control system applied to the ...

12 th International Conference on Urban Drainage, Porto Alegre/Brazil, 11-16 September 2011
in this case GPRS cannot be used as the communication medium. This is why, in
collaboration with the municipality of Hildesheim, SEGNO has used a DSL (broadband
Internet) network. The result was that, in the case of Hildesheim, network control was
additionally centralised because the cables to the treatment plant’s central PLC were already
available (Peikert et al., 2010).
In addition to having control and communication tasks, the RTC system box can - and should
- also be responsible for data storage and data management in the sewer network. For the purpose
of displaying, and inputting or outputting data on the spot, the box has been designed to
allow the data to be captured via an OPC interface to a visualisation system (InTouch made by
Wonderware). An additional interface was created for the purpose of configuring the module
from the visualisation system directly. In this form, even after system commissioning, the
operator has been provided with a tool that facilitates adjustments to the parameter settings.
Thus enables the module’s control behaviour to be directly influenced, while operating convenience
is enhanced (Peikert et al., 2010).
Moreover, an engineering tool that supports the operation of the ADESBA box with historical
data, too, has been developed. Thus, it has been successfully verified that the behaviour of the
physical ADESBA control box is identical to that of the model blocks. This considerably simplifies
the actual realisation of the control box and verification management of the linked control
system. Figure 3 shows the function of the engineering tool.
Figure 3. Engineering tool - test setup with historical data (Peikert et al., 2010)
Project execution covered not only development but also the testing of the RTC system box -
i.e. ensuring intercommunication between all the modules involved and their interfaces.
Another question that is of considerable importance to sewage system operators is how the
quality of the ADESBA RTC system box can be demonstrated. A fundamental problem when
testing any RTC system for sewer systems is the non-reproducibility of rainfall events. That
means control behaviour of control systems cannot be accurately assessed solely on the basis
of simulation studies - SEGNO has developed an engineering tool that compares data on
actual events with data on controlled events, thus permitting an assessment of ADESBA’s
6 ADESBA - A new general global control system