The customer used the Propheto platform to build a condition monitoring system for mining equipment. Applied Systems helped to integrate the platform with Siemens industrial controllers, ensuring high transmission capacity, as well as safe and reliable interaction with the platform’s services such as data acquisition, storage, visualization, and event and alarm notifications.
 

Customer
A partner of Siemens in Latvia, TEKA Telecom is an official supplier of Siemens products and solutions. The company was looking to partner with a software development vendor experienced in specialized industrial solutions to implement a series of integration projects related to condition monitoring of mining equipment.

Challenge
Propheto, a technological platform for smart maintenance developed by Applied Systems, was chosen as a framework for building a condition monitoring system for mining equipment. Propheto met the essential set of requirements for project implementation, and served as a convenient tool to store, visualize and analyze data.

To proceed with the condition monitoring system, TEKA Telecom needed a technological bridge between Siemens controllers, primarily SIMATIC S7-1200 and S7-1500, and the Propheto platform. It was necessary to enable a transmission capacity of at least 30.000 measurements per second, to implement audio message decoding and to integrate the controller error handling system with the corresponding services of the Propheto platform.

The development phase was to be completed in a short time to allow customers’ PLC developers and analysts to continue their work swiftly.

Solution
Applied Systems’ team went for an integrated solution to address the project objectives.



On the controller side: The functions of the Propheto Bridge:

  • Preparation of a measured data flow for transmission
  • Capturing of audio messages
  • Collection of data on logical errors
  • Transferring of collected data to the host system

 On the platform side: The functions of the S7 data gateway module:

  • Uploading of the controller data via WinSock API to the Data Hub of the Propheto platform
  • Decoding and storage of audio messages using a hardware codec connected to the server via a USB-UART bridge
  • Capturing of data on logical errors in internal PLC programs, as well as controller and communication errors
  • Transfer of the captured error data to the Alarm Handler and Event Handler modules of the Propheto platform

 
Automated regression testing was a significant part of the project’s quality assurance. To accelerate its development and implementation, the team built controller simulators to replicate the hardware behavior in correct and erroneous conditions.

Results
Applied Systems delivered the bridge in 2.5 months. Our solution enables interaction between Siemens controllers and the DataHub, AlarmSystem, and EventSystem services of the Propheto platform. The total transmission capacity exceeds 100,000 measurements per second. Now TEKA Telecom can use the Propheto platform in its integration projects aimed at condition monitoring of mining equipment.