Introduction to UCOS

UCOS is designed for companies that want to move away from the limitations of traditional DCS, SCADA, or PLC+HMI systems.

UCOS includes all the standard capabilities of these systems, such as real-time logic solving, built-in diagnostics, component redundancy, graphic displays, trending, and both TCP/IP and serial communications.

UCOS also includes features found nowhere else, including the ability to:

• Use any traditional control system architecture, such as DCS, SCADA, PLC/HMI, or any combination, thus achieving a high degree of configurability along with low cost and easy maintenance.
• Configure regulatory, discrete, and sequential control in a single interface.
• Use industry-standard hardware available from numerous suppliers, including more than 40 I/O families from more than 20 manufacturers.
• Connect with thousands of applications through Windows 2000/XP at the supervisory level.
• Design, configure, test, and document projects faster and easier using patented, award-winning techniques.

This introduction to UCOS is brief, but covers many of the most important features of the system.

Details

Development Tool Saves Time, Improves Consistency

The UCOS development tool uses a user-configurable library of device templates that is critical to the simplification of application development.

The UCOS development tool lets the user graphically configure object-oriented control logic and simultaneously generate operator interface graphics and device faceplates with no additional effort. This function alone eliminates hours of engineering effort per device to integrate PLC control logic with operator interface software. This also guarantees consistent design functionality and repeatable results at all levels.

Furthermore, UCOS integrates the capabilities of traditional sequential control languages (ladder logic) with traditional regulatory control languages (function blocks) into a single, object-oriented, graphical method.

As a consequence, UCOS can significantly reduce the cost of developing, implementing, maintaining, and expanding a control system.

Open System Standards Saves Money

UCOS is designed around de facto open system standards at all levels.

The development and HMI workstations are PCs running Windows 2000/XP. The controllers are industry-standard PLCs or ruggedized industrial computers running a real-time operating system based on a QNX kernel. The controller directly scans and controls multiple brands of I/O modules and executes event-driven logic.

UCOS also takes advantage of today's network technology by employing TCP/IP and a report-by-exception communication methodology in order to optimize network bandwidth. This feature reduces network loading and increases data integrity for both centralized and distributed configurations.

Exchange Data with Other Applications

When exchanging data with third-party software products is required, UCOS uses industry standards wherever possible to minimize integration efforts while maximizing the possibilities. Report packages, spreadsheets, databases, and custom application software can read point values from and write point values to UCOS. Archived data values can be read using an ODBC-compliant application.

This makes it possible to create custom reports, perform calculations, insert real-time data into word processor documents, view data in a format not directly supported by UCOS, and perform other functions via third-party or custom applications that are ODBC-compliant.

Summary

The UCOS open system architecture features the following characteristics:

• Windows 2000/XP providing a reliable, secure platform for the engineering and operator workstations
• Open data exchange via Microsoft ActiveX, OPC, and Microsoft Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE)
• VSAT, Fiber optic or Ethernet LAN, WAN, radio, or microwave networking
• TCP/IP, Modbus, OPC, DDE, or proprietary networking protocols
• Hardware vendor independence at all levels
• An industry-standard, real-time operating system for the controllers
• The ability to import/export project configuration data into/from the UCOS object-oriented database
• The ability to export historical data for use with ODBC-compliant applications
• Support for host-level control sequences in a true logic controller rather than in a script language
• No requirements to change logic programming when controllers are upgraded
• The ability to handle multiple I/O chains simultaneously