Today's SCADA HMI Includes Even More Symbols And Animations

Author: Archer Finch

The HMI SCADA software was the backbone of the monitoring and supervision market since the industrialization shifted to data acquisition and analysis on a real-time basis. This was not going to be made possible without the use of computers and its associated hardware and software. The hardware helps take measurements and the software helps convey them to the human in an easy to understand and readable form. Then came the era of software SCADA tools and UIs that made those numbers seem friendly, easy to associate, relate to other variables in the same or different system, and offer more beautiful analysis of the numbers. The analysis made manual labor less and increased productivity. As of today, more than 38% businesses run on SCADA formulated automation systems ranging from the automobile industry to the cotton garment manufacturing company in your neighborhood.

Why seamless integration?

These two portions of the entire unit needed to be integrated richly and seamlessly with each other so that the devices can be read completely, their data can be transferred and read along with other devices' data and their analysis can be made together without waiting for another system to make the readings. In order for that to happen in software SCADA systems, the automation systems and panels and controllers acquiring the data at different stages need to be interconnected. This could be achieved using Ethernet modules on an intranet and allowing the devices to talk to each other. Although the individual modules have their own specific tasks, they remain interconnected so that the data can be read and send, where necessary. A separate line is not necessarily starting from each device to every other device. There are various kinds of measuring equipment, both analog and digital, and they are shielded electrically to ensure safety and data corruption. In much the same way, the software is shielded in order to avoid data corruption.

Thus, in an HMI SCADA data acquisition system, data can get corrupted at the hardware and the software level, and the seamless integration is necessary also to avoid such a fault.

How readability matters?

When setting up any integrated system, one needs to set up appropriate gadgets from the library. This is where the intensive library of tools comes handy. They are represented using status symbols as in theory and come to live in practical as well. An integrated development environment allows the developer to connect the hardware and the software as a wrapper around it, which later proves beneficial to the user, improves readability and accessibility to the knowhow.

This know how, when offered in a more readable manner, increases the productivity, the efficiency of the development, the efficiency of the end-user who manages and operates the software.

Archer Finch helps in tackling the materials on the web and providing surveys on software SCADA and HMI SCADA systems in a regular fashion. In order to do so, he consumes information regularly and shifts between useful and redundant parts to make inference easy for the readers around the world, with same interests.