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Advanced Monitoring Technologies Inc. (AMT) provides
cost effective control solutions with energy-saving control
logic for refrigeration plants and ice arenas. They are
on the cutting edge of energy-saving technology and were
recognized by Canada's National Research Council
in 2003 as a finalist for the Canadian Innovation Award
for Sustainable Development.
AMT's TechCold refrigeration system has two
main purposes:
- to cause a substantial reduction in energy consumption
and demand.
- to provide a standardized system that is common to
all of a company's plants resulting in reduced
implementation and servicing costs while providing
ongoing remote monitoring and upgrade capability. The
TechCold refrigeration system comes in two varieties,
TechCold Modular (TCM) for plants without centralized
control and TechCold Integrated (TCI) for plants with
existing centralized control.
Since most plants already have control systems with
I/O schemes, AMT's goal in designing their TCI
system was to have it interface seamlessly with almost
any controls manufacturer. Device communications within
an industrial climate can be daunting, there are a
myriad of device manufacturers and communication protocols.
Although AMT had the capability to develop communication
drivers they knew this would be a distraction from
their core business which is developing quality control
algorithms for the reduction of energy usage within
refrigeration systems.
AMT realized early that the best way to deal with
this was to implement OPC client capabilities into
their application software, then connect to 3rd party
OPC servers to interface with customer control systems.
AMT decided to standardize on Kepware's OPC server.
The KEPServerEX application is a single OPC server
with driver "plug-ins" for hundreds of
PLCs and devices, and would allow the TCI system to
connect to the widest variety of control systems.
To develop their TCI control system AMT teamed up
with a respected multi-national food processing firm
to develop a prototype that would integrate AMT's
high-end control algorithms with the customer's
existing PLC based controls infrastructure. This firm
gave AMT access to one of their plants for integration
and testing over a two-year period.
The diagram included with this overview shows how
a typical system allows for parallel operations flow
between the existing control system and the TCI. The
existing PLC based system still performs the alarm
and housekeeping chores while the TCI performs the
higher-end modulations and activations of the equipment.
All TCI operations are application programs written
within the industrial PC based processor. KEPServerEX
is installed on the TCI and communicates with the existing
PLC controls by means of a TCP/IP Ethernet connection.
Another Ethernet port allows access to remote clients
within or outside the plant and also permits system
operations to be viewed by means of an Internet browser.
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AMT's TCI system is successfully operating within
several plants with many other plants scheduled for
implementation. According to AMT's President,
Ernie Adsett "By standardizing on Kepware's OPC
server, we are able to connect to a wide variety of
PLCs and control systems without the need to make significant
changes in our application. This saves us time and
money on every application and allows us to focus on
and optimize our control algorithms for the customer."
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