Water Efficiency July/August 2009 : Page 48
Special Series: Data Integration SCADA and Live Pattern Matching By Steve Mustard S upervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) has been used for the past 40 years to monitor and control utility networks and manufacturing processes, and provide real-time informa- tion on networks to allow timely reactive responses to be made to incidents. Experienced operations staff can identify complex situations based on information provided by SCADA systems, and systems are in place elsewhere to ensure prompt reaction to these situations. Predicting the occurrence of complex situations would allow a more proactive approach to network management. There are now methods to predict such situa- tions, based on the automatic recognition of patterns in data supplied from SCADA and other data systems. This paper considers methods for using pattern recognition on live data to create a proactive network management methodology. Introduction Water companies are constantly challenged to meet, or exceed, ever-increasing regula- tory requirements with fewer and fewer staff. Technology and technical solutions have improved greatly over the past few years, and these already help the water companies in their challenges. Pattern matching is widely used in image and signal processing, as a means of automatically identifying actual or poten- tial events or features. The combination of such techniques with other utility systems could help to provide a comprehensive solution for pro- active management of water networks. 48 WATER EFFICIENCY Network management systems provide critical information. Improvements in SCADA The utility industry uses SCADA, also known as telemetry, as a fundamental component of their operations. Network management systems provide the water utility with critical information on the status of the network components and allow the network operators to effectively manage the treatment and distribution of clean and waste water. A typical wide-area SCADA system will cover a very large part of a water company’s operational network. Originally based on meeting safety requirements (such as alerting a control room when a level is too high or low) SCADA systems are now also used to col- lect performance information on their net- work assets, such as the number of hours a pump or motor has been running for. Water companies are becoming more proactive in the use of this performance data. For instance, with information on how many hours a pump or motor has run for, a maintenance manager can optimize maintenance based on how heavily equip- ment is used, which has an additional ben- efit that unscheduled outages are reduced. The Increasing Challenges for Water Companies Water companies have made huge steps to improve drinking water quality, reduce losses through leakage, and reduce inci- dents such as sewage spills. However, the regulatory bodies continue to press the companies concerned for improvements, and these demands present some signifi- cant challenges. These challenges all incor- porate a number of themes: • To identify potential issues before they become real problems • To schedule remedial work in a July/A ugust 2009 All images: au2mation
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