High performance telecontrol remote unit

Abstract

The purpose of this presentation is to describe the basic architecture of a high performance telecontrol remote terminal unit (RTU), in respect to the following aspects: distributed architecture and high precision synchronisation. The RTU architecture was chosen to be distributed in order to reduce cabling costs and cabling difficulties, caused by the several hundreds of signals that must be connected to the acquisition points (plant interface close to equipment terminals) in a factory. This also provides the means to distribute the processing power between all the units that compose the RTU, and to create two different EMC immunity requirements, one for the field units and other (less restrictive) for the central unit, using one high immunity communication medium as the connection path between all the system components (fiber optic).