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SCADA stands for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition but it is a term often used for data collection and presentation.
SCADA is normally a software package designed to display information, log data and show alarms. This can be graphical and tabular and can involve words and pictures (or mimics). The software would normally be installed on a computer on the customers site and all the various signals would be wired back to the central point, or marshalled and gathered using some form of bus system.
SCADA can be used to monitor and control plant or equipment. The control may be automatic, or initiated by operator commands. The data acquisition is accomplished firstly by the RTU's (remote Terminal Units, in our case the IN4MA) The central host will scan the RTU's or the RTU’s will report in Data can be of three main types. Analogue data (i.e. real numbers) will be trended (ie placed in graphs). Digital data (on/off) may have alarms attached to one state or the other. Pulse data (e.g. counting revolutions of a meter) is normally accumulated or counted
The IN4MA wireless telemetry devices offer a far more cost effecitve and easily to deploy solution, especially if the parameters that are to be monitored a scattered across a factory, or even across a country or continent. Data is collected in the IN4MA unit (for example the Metron http://www.in4ma.co.uk/products/in4ma_metron.asp ) and periodically transferred using the mobile phone network to a central hosting computer. The user then connects to this central computer over the internet and gains access to the data and reports.
Instead of the client having to invest heavily in computer hardware and SCADA software the solution from IN4MA is far more cost effective, with the client simply paying a monthly fee for each IN4MA reporting in.
The IN4MA PC unit takes the solution further with near real time reporting using GPRS, large amounts of inputs and outputs as well as alarming and control capabilities. For more information please visit http://www.in4ma.co.uk/products/in4ma_pc.html
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