General purpose I/O technology for control systems
The universal I/O technology of the control system means that the I/O module has good versatility. The same I/O point can be configured as AI, AO, DI, DO, or even more signal types. For the universal I/O technology of the control system, compared with the universal input technology of the display introduced above, the "universal" object has been extended from only "input" to "output". Compared with the IMP remote measurement and control terminal, the universal The object has expanded from analog quantities with only input and switching values with both "input" and "output" to analog quantities and switching values with both "input" and "output".
When talking about general-purpose I/O technology in control systems, it is usually thought that it started with the introduction of electronic wiring by Emerson Process Management in 2009. Three to five years or more later, foreign Honeywell, Yokogawa, ABB, Schneider Foxboro, Pepperl+Fuchs, Eaton, Phoenix, and Computrols all launched general I/O technology, and domestic Hollysys, Zhejiang SUPCON has also launched products applying this technology in recent years.
Honeywell’s general purpose I/O
Since 2013, Honeywell has provided universal (Unviersal) I/O technology for universal solutions for Experion PKS, safety managers and intrinsically safe applications. The universal I/O module is a multi-function card (referred to as UIO module, see Figure 5), you can freely select different I/O types for 32 configurable I/O points in one IO module, such as AI, AO, DI and DO. It has two forms: redundant and non-redundant.
Honeywell's universal I/O module places a universal process instrumentation box (UNIVERSAL PROCESS CABINET, UPC) on site, including up to 6 32-point universal ControlEdge900 IO cards and redundant optical fiber communication modules, UIO cards Communication with the controller via redundant IO-Link fieldbus.
The difference between Honeywell's 6×32-point universal process instrument box and Emerson Electronic Wiring's card CHARM is that Honeywell's UIO module is a multi-point universal signal integral module and does not have a removable single-point signal card. The size is 150×100×50mm, which is very small and weighs only 0.5kg. The second difference is that it uses software configuration to define I/O channel types and achieves universal I/O signal access without replacing hardware. Each module's 32 universal channels can be individually configured as AI, AO, DI, DO or AI/AO supported HART7. However, the support range of general I/O does not include temperature instrument signals, and the temperature signal input is sent to the 128LLAI temperature-specific wiring cabinet. General I/O forms an I/O network through a high-speed, fault-tolerant Ethernet. Honeywell adopts I/O automatic query technology. As long as this I/O channel is connected to the I/O network, any control The controller can communicate with any I/O channel, whereas previously the controller could only communicate with the I/O to which it was physically connected. In this way, the time for configuring I/O and engineering can be greatly reduced. Honeywell's general I/O was used in the Experion PKS DCS system in the early days, and was later promoted to the Control Edge PLC that was improved on the original HC900 product platform (see Figure 7), making it the first to provide general I/O. Functional first PLC. On this PLC, a 16-point universal I/O module (900U01-0100) is used, which can be configured by software as DI or DO or AI/AO with HART.
From mid-2013 to September 2017, the number of IO points using UIO modules worldwide exceeded 25 million. A petrochemical project in southern China under design (according to analysis, it may be ExxonMobil's Huizhou ethylene project) uses Honeywell's UIO technology solution.
The Experion PKS IO HIVE (Highly Integrated Virtual Environment, highly integrated virtual environment) technology launched by Honeywell in 2019 is implemented through the network interface module CN100 (see Figure 8) as the hardware to implement the Experion IO HIVE technology. Connect to the Experion controller via secure fault-tolerant Ethernet via copper or fiber optic media, down to all I/O modules located within the cabinet. CN100 is an IO HIVE-enabled device with integrated firewall, integrated media conversion, optional function as 20ms controller, providing fully redundant high-performance control, supporting regulation, sequence and logical control, suitable for complete equipment and physical distributed control application. Control solutions can be hosted locally in redundant hardware, meaning that they can be individually commissioned and controlled locally at the cabinet level.
