PcVue, Inc., the North American affiliate of ARC Informatique and HMI/ SCADA software automation solution provider, is pleased to announce its COO Edward Nugent will deliver a groundbreaking presentation titled “Proximity Based Contextual Mobility for SCADA” at the Remote Monitoring & Control 2015 conference, located in Las Vegas, Nevada on November 5th and 6th.
Proximity-based services enabled by micro-geolocation for Indoor Positioning Systems (IPS) are growing quickly. The IPS technology market alone is estimated to reach $5 billion in revenues by 2017 and to represent over 200,000 installations of infrastructure equipment, including Wi-Fi hotspots, Bluetooth antennas, and more than 800 million branded applications downloads.
This technology has made possible the practical deployment of contextual Human Machine Interfaces (HMI).Contextual HMI creates the opportunity for new more efficient work processes for those who rely on Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) and Building Management Systems (BMS) to perform their job.
“We are excited to present innovative technology that is transforming how automated processes and facilities are commissioned, managed and maintained. Today’s workplace of operators stationed in central control rooms is evolving to a mobility focused organization enabled by smart phones and tablets with proximity-based services. Remote Monitoring & Control 2015 is the perfect venue to introduce a mobility infrastructure that accelerates that transformation,” said Edward Nugent, COO at PcVue.
Remote access to supervisory systems have typically been accomplished by using internet browsers on laptops. With the increasing adoption of smart mobile devices, technology such as Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (RDS) has been adopted as an alternative for mobile HMI.
Navigating an HMI designed for a workstation while using a much smaller mobile device can prove difficult given the reduced screen size and mechanism for managing the mouse. A mobility infrastructure eliminates this problem via the presentation of information and controls in the context of role and place. It provides a dynamic HMI that changes as the worker moves through workplace zones automatically adjusting for job responsibility. In a plant scenario, such a system is aware which floor a worker is on and automatically sends the status and controls of equipment in that worker’s proximity. It is a very pro-active approach that is recognized to improve the efficiency of commissioning, operation and maintenance of automation systems.
For safety, it is critical that the Mobility Server know the current location of workers. With the ready availability of geolocation signals, IPS indoors and GPS outdoors, it is possible to track location by simply archiving the device’s position over time. Safety and dispatch tracking are natural functions of the Mobility Server which relies on position in order to create contextual HMI. PcVue Solutions are reinventing mobility architectures with smart mobile devices using proximity services in innovative ways to benefit SCADA and Intelligent Building projects throughout the world.