Viking, a leading system integrator of audio- and video equipment in Saint Petersburg, implemented a project to create a control room and a situation center for Levoberezhny Water Treatment Plant. A complex of information display facilities was installed in Neva Automated Process Control System building of Levoberezhny Water Treatment Plant, bringing the process control and management system to a principally new level.
Managers of Vodokanal sought to create a water supply facilities condition and operation control system at Saint Petersburg Vodokanal State Unitary Enterprise for a long time. Partially, they succeeded to do it: 6 video cubes wall was installed in the central control room of the State Unitary Enterprise. Now it’s time for the branches, and Levoberezhnoye branch is the first to become advanced and to replace old equipment by the system enabling to present visually any information required.
Yuri Kovalenkov, Head of the Automatic Process Control System Department, explained details of the project: “All video equipment in the building at White Island was installed in accordance with current development concept of the Automated Process Control System approved by Vodokanal State Unitary Enterprise more than two years ago. In compliance with this concept, the whole enterprise automation process is being developed – from installation of sensors at lower level facilities, for example, pumps and pipes, to such projects like this oneâ€.
To implement the project, managers of Vodokanal arranged a tender for delivery and implementation of various equipment, including video walls. The conclusion of the customer was unambiguous: an offer of Viking based on the latest developments of Mitsubishi Electric, was the best to comply with requirement specification in terms of quality, reliability, delivery terms, and maintenance convenience of the equipment to be supplied. Taking into account Viking experience in development of such projects, the choice was made in favor of this candidate and the work was started.
Project Development
Due to specific features of their activities, Vodokanal employees desperately need information display facilities enabling to see the whole picture of events in on-line regime. Visualizing of large diagrams and charts charged with small details requires high informational capacity of the screen; such problems are usually solved by means of video walls.
In the frames of this project to create Neva Automated Process Control System, it was decided to install two video walls: in the control room and the situation center. According to the project, the whole equipment is to work faultlessly on 24 hours per day, 7 days per week basis.
In addition to performance criteria of the equipment, there were other conditions to be taken into consideration by the installers. First of all, it is ergonomics. A lot of employees constantly work in the large control room, each of them has an own automated workplace and simultaneously uses the collective screen. In this connection, the screen is to be of relevant dimensions, to be located in the comfortable visibility area, to have optimal viewing angles, proper brightness, to display sharp image.
Having analyzed various offers in the video equipment market, Viking and Vodokanal representatives chose Mitsubishi 50XLW projection cubes. These are two-tune modules with 50’ diagonal and 1024x768 pixels resolution. It was decided to install six cubes in the control room: three horizontally and two vertically. So, total video wall resolution was 3072x1536 pixels. Such informational capacity turned out to be enough to display the whole material required. Dimensions of the whole poly-screen are about 3 x 1.5 meters that perfectly meets ergonomic requirements of the room. The image displayed by these cubes completely suits the customer in terms of the brightness – declared 500 Cd/m2 ensure bright image even in very light rooms.
Mitsubishi 50XLW cubes turned out to be a really good choice in terms of such parameters like reliability and maintenance simplicity. These cubes are equipped with automated tube replacement system ensuring uninterrupted operation of the system 24 hours per day. Mitsubishi technologies are also applied in this model simplifying image correction in case of tube or color dividing wheel is replaced: image homogeneity is adjusted automatically on the whole area of the poly-screen .
Specifications of the controllers responsible for image forming became an important criterion for choice of the video wall. Jupiter Fusion 960 special controllers with 4 RGB/DVI input ports, 6 video input ports, 6 DVI output ports and a possibility to connect to local network, were applied in this project. The controllers enable to display simultaneously signals from ten sources on the wall. Signal sources are commutated by Kramer equipment: VP-1608 switch board and VP-200N signal splitter. Power Ware 5115 750 VA sourses ensure faultless power supply.
Everything Is Under Control
The information visualizing complex created by Viking is only a visible portion of the complicated informational system of Neva Automated Process Control System that covers all water facilities of Levoberezhny Water Treatment Plant. Neva Automated Process Control System is built up on Plant Information System principles and has four data collecting and processing levels. Data collected from all water towers, water supply, pumping, sewage disposal stations, district control rooms and other key points, come through PI server to on-line database and are displayed on the video wall screen in the control room. Everything looks rather schematic here: each facility to be controlled has a color signal showing on-site situation. If necessary, an operator can obtain more detailed information for each unit of the system sending and enquiry through the internal network. So, the system is based on the step structure principle.
“Before approval of the concept, - said Yuri Kovalenkov, - such arterial solutions were impossible, as facilities were automated spontaneously and many of them had their own systems sometimes hardly compatible to each other. To collect all information from all substations and units, to standardize it, PI System software was selected that enabled to integrate the equipment of different manufacturersâ€.
In addition to the above-mentioned advanced control room, the Automated Process Control System development concept of Levoberezgny Water Treatment Plant provides for the situation center collecting important operational and analytical information required to make managerial decisions in case of emergency situations. Operational information from the control room is supported by expert opinions supplied by means of video conference. All these informational flows are displayed at the video wall. In this case, the customer chose four Mitsubishi 67PH high-resolution cubes with 67’ diagonal. The resolution of each cube is 1400x1050 pixels, and total resolution of the whole video wall is 1800x2100 pixels. In terms of view of functionality and reliability, this model is similar to Mitsubishi 50XLW cubes – it also has automatic tube replacement system and automatic image homogeneity adjustment algorithms. The same Jupiter Fusion 960 with 4 video output points controls the wall.
Installation Specific Features
The building of Neva Automated Process Control System was built together with the system development, that was why Viking experts managed to raise requirements to design planning of the control room and situation center. In particular, separate equipment rooms were provided for, where rather noisy controllers and other devices were installed. This enabled to comply with noise insulation standards applied to work rooms. No equipment rooms were provided for in the initial project.
Viking was also responsible for development of software to control video walls: friendly interface software was developed enabling an operator to switch information sources on prompt basis, to manipulate with windows, etc.
In addition to the control room and situation center, Viking supplied with presentation equipment some other rooms in the same building: conference hall, managers’ room, etc.
L.B. Tochanskaya, Director of Viking LLC, gave a high estimation to the project: “Viking has been working with Saint Petersburg Vodokanal for a long time. In recent years, we supplied several halls and rooms with presentation equipment. However, the said project is, no doubts, the largest one in the history of our relations. Successful development of this interesting project opened for us real prospects for future, even fore impressing mutual projectsâ€.
Saint Petersburg Vodokanal History Information
Saint Petersburg Vodokanal State Unitary Enterprise exists for over 144 years and during the whole its history plays a key role in the megapolis life. Central water supply of the city was launched on November 20, 1862 and was constantly developing and improving ever since.
Before 1863, the capital of Russian Empire had no central water supply system. People used water directly from numerous channels crossing the city in various directions, from dug wells. In addition, water carriers and watermen supplied inhabitants of the city with water, mainly, from Neva. The foundation of the central water supply system in Petersburg was laid by establishing of Saint Petersburg Water Pipelines Joint-Stock Company, which implemented the first project to construct water supply pipelines in the right side of the city by 1864. From then onwards, the length of water supply network was constantly increasing, and implementation of new, sometimes unique, technical solutions aided to improve the quality of inflow and outflow water. In the beginning of the XX-th century, such innovations included ozone treatment facilities, and in 1920-30-ies sewage disposal system was completed at railway speed, fast filtration system was implemented, daily water rates per capita were approved. In 1972, the Central Aeration Station was established at Bely Island burnt dewatered sludge and didn’t pollute the environment.
Now three branches are responsible for supply of inhabitants with water: Levoberezgny Water Treatment Plant, Pravoberezhny Water Treatment Plant, and South-Western Water Treatment Plant. This enabled to control better operation of relevant facilities. Saint Petersburg Vodokanal State Unitary Enterprise has over 7,000 employees, the company renders services to more than 4.7 million of people in Saint Petersburg and suburbs supplying and carrying away around 2.5 million m3 of water per day.