Initially, LED Elektronika was using their PrecisionX SCADA system to collect, store, and process traffic data in real time and present it to operators in the Krapina Traffic Center. This capability resulted in reliable traffic surveillance and management, which are crucial for road safety.
To take these capabilities further, LED Elektronika enhanced its PrecisionX SCADA solution by building on top of the GENESIS64 platform. The result was a transportation-focused system designed specifically for tunnel and road automation. Setting up the backend (assets, data connections, and data collection/alarming) was completed in just a few weeks instead of months, significantly accelerating the implementation stage.
By modeling equipment and data as assets within GENESIS64, LED Elektronika was able to take an object-oriented approach to the data model. This made it possible to transition quickly from custom-developed .NET applications to GENESIS64. As a result, workforce hours were reduced by 5x to 7x, cutting backend engineering and development costs while preserving system redundancy and scalability.
Additionally, the engineering and development costs of the front-end resulted in a 2x to 4x reduction in workforce hours along with a preservation of backward compatibility (presenting the GUI via web browsers). The GENESIS GUI layout design capabilities with panels and vector graphics provide high quality and responsive designs, and using the dynamics on the objects provides effects that meet user expectations.
Now, several levels of automatic scenarios and algorithms can be implemented in the system. In the field with local controllers, an automated workflow is implemented to ensure the regulation of traffic flow, depending on the data from the traffic detectors, fire sensors, cameras, and wind and air quality sensors.
In the Control Center, a global workflow is implemented, thus coordinating multiple field devices to ensure global traffic regulation and flow over the entire section of the road. In case of a fire, a fire response scenario is activated, bypassing all active algorithms to ensure smoke and fire localization (stratification and ventilation of tunnels) and to secure traffic regulation and traffic rerouting with the primary focus of saving human lives.
Operators can also initiate manual control of the system to directly control equipment in the field via an intuitive interface. And if needed, multiple commands can be sent simultaneously to individual devices or selected groups of devices.
To achieve optimal user experience and to ensure smooth performance of the system at the same time, LED Elektronika developed a wide range of custom features which include the following:
- TAB CONTROL – inside every popup window there is a tab control created through custom design manipulation.
- TOOL TIPS – every device has a custom tooltip control in which its position changes dynamically according to the position of the device.
- MENU – a custom main menu can be triggered by hovering over a defined area and a context menu can be triggered by right-click, allowing the user to acknowledge an alarm on that specific device, open a popup on a specific tab, etc.
- DYNAMIC POPUP – content is generated dynamically from assets. This capability drastically reduces the number of display files and enables high scalability of the user interface.
- GROUP COMMANDS – users can configure custom batch commands via the interface.
- GROUP COMMANDS PREVIEW – the custom-created group command can be previewed, allowing the user to confirm if set up is correct before triggering the command.
- BUTTON – allows for dynamic change of a button color depending on different states, for example, mouse enter, mouse leave, and mouse down.
- TREND VIEWER TIME SPAN – the time span on a viewer was set to allow the user to have multiple pop-ups open while changing time span only on one.
- OBJECT POSITION – allows for dynamic change of an object’s position. Icon on a road sign dynamically changes position depending on its real-time location.
- MASTER/SLAVE DEVICE – allows for visual preview of a master/slave device, where a dynamic object changes visual appearance (for example, border color).
LED Elektronika then decided to test the limits of just how extensible the GENESIS64 platform could be. While the TLS2002 BASt protocol had been mainstream in road traffic systems and the intelligent transportation system (ITS) industry for the last 40 years, it was not commonly found on the supported protocol list of any industrial automation SCADA system.
Now thanks to GENESIS' Extensibility ToolWorX training and some dedicated collaboration, LED Elektronika was able to develop a custom point manager that plugged seamlessly into the communication layer of the SCADA system. In addition, since redundancy is a relevant part of the system, client and server redundancy were implemented on site due to the high requirements of the overall system stability.