New SCADA – The innovative SCADA-System with free Open-Source Software

Commercial SCADA products are usually very expensive to purchase and operate due to maintenance contracts, annual license costs and the limitation to the manufacturer’s service.

A free open-source SCADA product has not yet established itself; all projects have come to nothing or are technologically outdated.

Our concept does not even try to develop a new SCADA system but relies on a modular and distributed design with already existing, proven, powerful and free open-source components, for each of which there is a large community of supporters.

Advantages:

  • No software acquisition costs
  • No annual royalty payments
  • Independent of a manufacturer
  • Complete operation with the web browser (no client installation required)
  • Source code and various documentation are publicly availableh
  • Many tutorials on Youtube and on the web
  • Regardless of the operating system: Linux, Windows and OSX are supported

Concept

The IoT gateways in the remote stations with Node-Red software collect the data for local operation and monitoring. Thanks to the IoT gateways, the system remains operable even in the event of an Internet or wide-area network failure!

Node-Red sends the data changes to an influxDB time series database for archiving, compression into daily, monthly and annual values and formation of consumption.

Finally, the Grafana web dashboard software displays the influxDB data in meaningful graphics.

Variant 1: IoT gateway in every remote station

This variant is used when the remote stations are connected via the Internet or a complicated, wide-area network that is susceptible to interference and sabotage. We recommend this variant because it offers the highest level of operational reliability and sabotage protection, as each outdoor station is self-sufficient.

Variant 2: Central IoT gateway

If the remote stations are connected via a robust local network, i.e. no internet and no wide area network, a central IoT gateway can be used.

IoT gateway hardware

As hardware for the IoT gateway in the outstations, we use the KUNDUS RevPi Connect with the free Linux operating system. The KUNDUS RevPi Connect costs about 450€.

The KUNDUS RevPi Connect can also be used for the IoT gateway at central location. However, an industrial-grade PC or virtual machine can also be used.

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IoT Gateway Software

As IoT gateway software, we use the free open-source Node-Red software. This software, developed by IBM, offers graphical programming and web visualizationg.

Advantages:

  • Is free
  • Complete operation with the web browser (no client installation required)
  • Runs on Linux, Windows, and OSX

The Editor:

Visualization:

influxDB time series database

For the long-term archiving and compression of the data into daily, monthly and annual values, the free open-source version of the influxDB time series database is used. This database is specifically designed for archiving time-stamped values.

Through an SQL-like query language, influxDB allows the free programming of densities in time intervals (hourly, daily, monthly values..), the calculation of consumption and much more

Advantages:

  • Is free
  • Complete operation with the web browser (no client installation required)
  • Runs on Linux, Windows and OSX
  • Optionally, there is a paid cloud solution if you do not want to install and manage the database yourself

Grafana Web-Dashboard

For sophisticated dashboards, we use Grafana ..

Advantages:

  • Is free
  • Complete operation with the web browser (no client installation required))
  • Can also be used on mobile devices thanks to responsive design
  • High-quality graphics with time-synchronous display of charts
  • Runs on Linux, Windows and OSX
  • Optionally, a paid cloud solution if you don’t want to install and manage the software yourself