SCADA Contextual Alarm Correlation for Distributed Machine Control
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Managing large and geographically dispersed industrial machines in SCADA systems is challenging due to the difficulty in identifying anomalous alarm events and their relationship with external events, such as weather conditions, which hinders effective control and management.
Innovation Solution
Integrating external contextual data, such as weather data, with monitoring data from industrial machines to form a combined display that visually associates alarms with contextual information, allowing for automated or manual control instructions to address these events.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If monitoring data from all industrial machines is collected, then complete event coverage is achieved, but event management becomes unmanageable due to large volume
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments alarm events into different categories (e.g., equipment alarms, environmental alarms, operational alarms) and applies different management strategies to each category. This segmentation allows operators to focus on specific types of events rather than being overwhelmed by all events simultaneously, resolving the contradiction between complete coverage and manageable operation.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary layer of event correlation and contextualization that processes raw alarm events and presents them in a more manageable form. This intermediary layer correlates events with contextual data (weather, geographic information, operational status) to reduce the effective number of events operators need to manage while maintaining complete coverage.
2Loss of information
If alarm events are correlated with external contextual data, then actionable insights are improved, but data processing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary action by pre-processing and storing contextual data (weather patterns, geographic information, historical event data) before it is needed for alarm correlation. This pre-processing creates ready-to-use contextual information that can be quickly matched with alarm events, reducing the complexity of real-time data processing while improving actionable insights.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies parameter changes by transforming raw alarm data and contextual data into standardized formats with common parameters (time, location, severity, type). This standardization enables efficient correlation and comparison operations, reducing processing complexity while maintaining rich actionable information.
3Quantity of substance
If geographically dispersed industrial machines are monitored, then comprehensive coverage is achieved, but event relationship identification becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent adds another dimension (spatial/geographic dimension) to the monitoring system by incorporating geographic information system (GIS) capabilities. This allows events from geographically dispersed machines to be visualized and correlated on a map interface, making it easier to identify relationships between events that would be difficult to detect in a flat, non-spatial data representation while maintaining comprehensive coverage.
Data Source
AI summary
A method is described for controlling one or more industrial machines based on external contextual data and monitoring data of a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system. The method includes obtaining, using an application programming interface (API), the external contextual data from one or more external sources. Monitoring data including one or more alarms obtained from one or more remote terminal units (RTUs) associated with the one or more industrial machines is identified. The external contextual data is integrated with the monitoring data to form a combined display of the external contextual data and the monitoring data. Data is provided that visually associates the external contextual data and the one or more alarms in the combined display. Thereafter, a control instruction is communicated to the one or more industrial machines, via the one or more RTUs. The control instruction is configured to change the state of the one or more industrial machines to address the one or more alarms.