International Journal of Advancements in Research & Technology, Volume 2, Issue4, April‐2013 482 ISSN 2278‐7763 Application of Cloud Computing in Hazardous Mechanical Industries
By
Dipankar Mishra
Ratnesh Kumar Gupta
Dept of Electronics & Communication
Pusa Polytechnic, New Delhi, India
Dept of Mechanical Engg
Pusa Polytechnic, New Delhi, India
Email : dm.pusa@gmail.com
Abstract : As technology has developed, the inherent risk factor in industries has also increased.
Heavy industries are prone to accidents mainly due to the fatigue factor of the operators
combined with the hazardous setting of the machinery being used. Giant turbine of power
generators, nuclear fuelled power houses are some examples of hazardous industries. The risk
factor involved in such industries has been amply demonstrated in the recent nuclear disaster that
took place in Japan following the earthquake and the tsunami.
Cloud computing , a buzz word in the IT sector can be tweaked and adapted to remote
management of such hazardous industries to reduce the human errors and also the human
intervention to a great extent. Human lives that may be lost during operation disaster can be
vastly reduced by reducing the on-site manpower to the bare minimum. This paper presents an
approach to the use to cloud computing in hazardous mechanical industries.
Keywords : Risk mitigation, disaster management, hazardous industries, cloud computing
application
1.Introduction : Heavy industries have been
developing at a rapid pace. This has been
primarily because of the ever growing
demand for goods and products from these
industries. Consequently industries have
been employing technology to produce
goods at a faster rate. Power stations are
being setup to cater to the demands of
uninterrupted of these heavy industries.
Hydro electric power stations are being
setup, thermal and gas fired power units are
being modified and developed, nuclear
power plants are coming to the fore in a
major way, to reduce the gap between
supply and demand. All these industries use
heavy and dangerous equipments.
These heavy industry machinery require
constant monitoring and supervision. This
requires manpower, trained in that particular
field, present onsite to manage the
machinery. As the entire machinery has to
be managed 24hrs a day 365 hours a year,
manpower is deployed onsite year on. This
results in workers being posted in shifts. The
evening and the night shifts are those shifts
where maximum accidents and disasters
take place. The primary cause of these
incidents can be attributed to lack of
concentration, biological fatigue of the body
and other human parameters which are
generally at low values as night descends.
Cloud Computing, which is now widely
used by the IT industry to mesmerizing
Copyright © 2013 SciResPub. IJOART International Journal of Advancements in Research & Technology, Volume 2, Issue4, April‐2013 483 ISSN 2278‐7763 effect can be adapted to save human lives to
a great extent in a disaster in heavy
industries.
2.Cloud Computing : Cloud computing has
been the buzz word in the IT industry for a
long time now. Reducing resources,
increasing productivity, providing services
to the IT industry at a fraction of the
traditional
cost,
cloud
computing
applications are on the rise. Using the
internet as a medium, various services are
provided to the client at the remote end.
There are three different types of setup
1. Public cloud
2. Private cloud
3. Hybrid cloud
Private cloud (also called internal cloud or
corporate cloud) refers to a proprietary
computing architecture that provides hosted
services to a limited number of people
behind a firewall. The cloud computing
platform built on your own hardware and
software.
A public cloud is one based on the standard
cloud computing model, in which a service
provider makes resources, such as
applications and storage, available to the
general public over the Internet. Public
cloud services may be free or offered on a
pay-per-usage model.
A hybrid cloud is a composition of at least
one private cloud and at least one public
cloud. A hybrid cloud is typically offered in
one of two ways: a vendor has a private
cloud and forms a partnership with a public
cloud provider, or a public cloud provider
forms a partnership with a vendor that
provides private cloud platforms. A hybrid
cloud is a cloud computing environment in
which an organization provides and
manages some resources in-house and has
others provided externally.
The services provided by cloud computing
can be broadly classified into the following
categories;
2.1.Platform as a Service : In this service
structure, the platform requirements for
development is provided as a service. This
can include operating system, application
softwares or development software. It is at
this stage that access to services can be
monitored also.
2.2.Software as a Service : In this service
structure, the application and development
software are provided to the clients.
2.3.Infrastructure as a Service: This
service structure provides both the hardware
and software requirements of the client.
Computing hardware , network hardware
and other associated software are provided
to the client as per requirement .
Implementation of Cloud Computing in
Hazardous industries : Cloud Computing is
used in this proposed setup in conjunction
with SCADA system. Large generation
systems generally use a SCADA
(supervisory control and data acquisition)
system
for
operations.
Parameter
management,
real
time
monitoring,
parameter variation at different conditions
are handled by the SCADA system. The
SCADA system uses sensors at different
points in the system and the data obtained
Copyright © 2013 SciResPub. IJOART International Journal of Advancements in Research & Technology, Volume 2, Issue4, April‐2013 484 ISSN 2278‐7763 from the sensors is fed to the control
circuitry in the main control monitor. The
monitoring panel is managed by the trained
technical personal who watch the entire
panel with a hawk eye to prevent any
mishaps. Even though the entire operation of
the system is automated , the management is
in general on sensor based system with
manual management.
A general SCADA system setup has the
following blocks as shown in figure 1.
Figure 1
The above system operation is easy to
understand. Optical fiber cable (OFC) is
generally the medium to carry signals from
the Interfacing Units (IFU) to the control
Board. OFC also is used to interlink the
main control panel with the regional and
corporate offices through suitable network
topology.
Most SCADA systems do not provide
manipulation of the control panel from any
outside
location,
excepting
the
plant/industry site.
3.Drawbacks of the manual management
system: The manual management system
relies on a combination of automated sensor
system coupled with manual scrutiny by
onsite engineers. This relies heavily on the
analysis of the system parameters by both
the automated sensor system and the
technical competence of the onsite
engineers. As a result of manual
management,
the
entire
operation
management is done by onsite engineers
who work in shifts. Any emergency that
cannot be handled by the onsite engineers at
that point of time, results in either the
plant/industry being shutdown or experts
being rushed to the site. Vital time and
money is lost in either shutting down the
system or moving expert personnel to the
site of operations.
4.Proposed System : Cloud Computing can
be integrated into the SCADA system to
provide control of the plant from anyplace
on earth with a public Internet Connection.
Figure 2 indicates a possible setup.
As can be seen the operations can be
monitored at various levels. The limitation
imposed is that the control does not move
out of the confines of the corporation itself.
Copyright © 2013 SciResPub. IJOART International Journal of Advancements in Research & Technology, Volume 2, Issue4, April‐2013 485 ISSN 2278‐7763 Figure 2
A private cloud server is setup between the
LAN switch and the WAN/Public network
router. This server has access to the entire
SCADA network. The SCADA network is
designed to provide all the features of the
manual control management system over the
network through port management of LAN.
The cloud server is designed to provide
communication services through VoIP
(Voice over Internet Protocol) with added
video communication. The availability of
VoIP reduces the deployment of extra
communication network for communication
purposes which is generally separate to the
SCADA system.
The cloud server is then programmed to
provide services to connections from the
public network. These permissions can be
either temporary, short term or long term.
The type of access from the public network
can be governed with each access type being
defined in the facilities being availed.
Operation of the setup : Once everything has
been put in place, access can be provided to
users through the public INTERNET
service. For example if the services of an
expert from USA is to be availed, then the
corresponding IP address from which the
expert is available is provided with the
facility to access the entire SCADA system
through LAN. During the period the
SCADA is under control by the expert,
communication between the expert and the
local on site technicians can take place
through VoIP. Instructions provided by the
expert can be carried out by the technicians
or the expert can operate the system while
describing what he is working on
simultaneously.
Personnel
from
the
corporate and regional offices can also be
brought into the discussions through VoIP
conferencing.
If the requirement is for more than one
expert to work simultaneously, the same
facilities can be provided to multiple
incoming connections through the cloud
server. VoIP provides video conferencing
also. This can also be used to facilitate face
to face discussion.
5.Pro's and Con's of the proposed system
:
1. The use of public Internet Service for
access reduces the need for experts
to travel to the plant site to the bare
minimum.
2. Drastic reduction in cost of hiring an
expert for consultations.
3. Expert access time either local or
international is reduced to minutes as
the accessibility of the expert
Copyright © 2013 SciResPub. IJOART International Journal of Advancements in Research & Technology, Volume 2, Issue4, April‐2013 486 ISSN 2278‐7763 depends on his/her availability on the
Public Internet service
4. VoIP conferencing reduces cost of
assembling personnel for training
purposes by the expert.
5. More than one expert can be
consulted simultaneously through
VoIP, reducing the cost to the
company.
6. Emergency situations can be handled
by bringing in emergency personnel
to the nearest SCADA/Internet
connectivity center.
5.1Con's :
1. As the service is to be provided
through public Internet service,
reliability of the same is crucial.
2. The response of the cloud server is
highly dependent on the hardware
available. This may drive the cost of
the same to a great extent.
3. Server management requires highly
skilled personnel with indepth
knowledge of both hardware and
software. Hence skilled personnel
should be available.
4. Power backup is crucial for the cloud
server hence availability of the same
is cruicial for the smooth operation.
The proposed setup depends a lot on the
modern communication technology as well
as on the hardware that goes into the server.
It also depends on the skill of the server
operator who has to again work in shifts, a
bottle neck which this setup tries to
eliminate. Dependency on the technology
creates a risk factor which is beyond the
control of humans. Irrespective of the
drawbacks that are present inherently in the
system, the elimination of human
intervention at the plant site can be achieved
to a great extent. This can help in reducing
the fatalities at the plant site in case of any
disaster, a goal that this paper had set out to
achieve.
7.References :
1. EON Research Center publications,
Achen, Germany, pp 1-5, 2010
2. Northwest Power Planning Council,
New Resource Characterization for
the Fifth Power Plan 8th August
2002, pp 1-2.
3. Cloud Computing, Implementation,
Management and Security, JW
Rittinghouse and JF Ransome, CRC
Press.
4. Cloud computing best practices ,
Halley Beard, ITIL, London UK
5. As Internet service is used for
interconnectivity, high bandwidth is
essential to remove latency and lag.
6.Conclusion :
Copyright © 2013 SciResPub. IJOART