SCADA

What do you understand by the term SCADA
SCADA is an acronym for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition. It refers to a system that collects data from various sensors at a factory, plant or from remote locations and sends data to a remote computer which manages and ditributes the data. Some of the industries where SCADA is used are Water Management Systems, Electric Power, Traffic Signals, Mass Transit Systems, Environmental Control Systems, and Manufacturing Systems.

A SCADA system usually consists of sensors,signal conditioners , controllers, communication networks, user interfaces (HMI), and software. The system gathers data from various sensors which are either in close proximity or off site (sometimes miles away).SCADA can also be seen as a system with many data elements called points. The points can be either hard or soft. A hard data point is typically from a sensor output; a soft point is computed result derived using multiple sensor values. Data elements from hard and soft points are usually recorded continously;

A SCADA system normally include user interface, usually called Human Machine Interface (HMI). The HMI of a SCADA system is where data gets processed and presented to a human operator. HMI usually includes system admistrative controls with which the operator can configure/ control the SCADA system.

SCADA PRIMER