Book Description

An in-depth analysis of the RTAP product was undertaken within the CNC associate program to determine the feasibility of utilizing it to replace the current Supervisory Control System that supports the AVLIS program. This document contains the results of that evaluation. With some fundamental redesign the current Supervisory Control system could meet the needs described above. The redesign would require a large amount of software rewriting and would be very time consuming. The higher level functionality (alarming, automation, etc.) would have to wait until its completion. Our current understanding and preliminary testing indicate that using commercial software is the best way to get these new features at the minimum cost to the program. Additional savings will be obtained by moving the maintenance costs of the basic control system from in-house to commercial industry and allowing our developers to concentrate on the unique control areas that require customization. Our current operating system, VMS, has become a hindrance. The UNIX operating system has become the choice for most scientific and engineering systems and we should follow suit. As a result of the commercial system survey referenced above we selected RTAP, a SCADA product developed by Hewlett Packard (HP), as the most favorable product to replace the current supervisory system in AVLIS. It is an extremely open system, with a large, well defined Application Programming Interface (API). This will allow the seamless integration of unique front end devices in the laser area (e.g. Optical Device Controller). RTAP also possesses various functionality that is lacking in our current system: integrated alarming, real-time configurable database, system scalability, and a Sequence Control Language (SQL developed by CPU, an RTAP Channel Partner) that will facilitate the automation necessary to bring the AVLIS process to plant-line operation. It runs on HP-9000, DEC-Alpha, IBM-RS6000 and Sun Workstations.