The development of a new IEC 61850 standard-based logical node for monitoring of industrial process applications

Abstract

Communication has always been critical within the implementation of any real-time application, whether it be in the field of power systems or industrial process condition monitoring and control. Communication contributes to achieving synchronised process data used for monitoring applications and control applications. Electrical substations contain multi-functional devices known as Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs), having communication capabilities used in the protection, monitoring and control applications in the power system. IEDs are required to share information among themselves to perform various functions. This becomes challenging in a multi-vendor environment where vendors produce devices which have proprietary communication protocols resulting in a lack of interoperability with another vendor’s device as information cannot be distributed throughout the system without costly protocol translators (or converters). The need for standardized communication for the effective transfer of information throughout the power system was identified by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). This resulted in the publication of the IEC 61850 standard for communications between devices within substations initially, but later to devices found in the entire power system. The IEC 61850 standard uses a standardized device, service and object model which describes available data from various devices in the substation. The IEC 61850 standard utilizes an abstract modelling approach in defining communications services and data models which don’t form part of any specific protocol. These services are then mapped to actual protocols within the application. The IEC 61850 standard uses an object-oriented modelling approach. The logical node is the smallest element within the device model of the IEC 61850 standard. The IEC 61850 device model is made up of multiple parts. What is known as a Logical Node form one of the parts of the IEC 61850 device model. Condition monitoring which is the process of monitoring a system or process in order to detect underlying issues which may cause failures plays an important part in how the IEC 61850 standard is implemented. This research work presents the development of a new Logical Node which conforms to the IEC 61850 standard and used in a condition monitoring application where the obtained data is communicated over an Ethernet communication network by publishing and subscribing to GOOSE (Generic Object Orientated Substation Event) messages implemented between two lightweight IED models developed on an embedded hardware platform. The required knowledge to develop a device which conforms to the IEC 61850 standard almost always resides in the vendors domain. Very little knowledge resides within the public domain due to the challenges and difficulties associated with implementing of the standard. Given the limited knowledge in the public domain and the myriad of integration challenges within the sphere of the IEC 61850 standard, the thesis contributes by bringing this knowledge to the user in the following ways: 1) Design, development and implementation of methods and real-time complex algorithms in the application of the IEC 61850 standard on an embedded system using open-source software. 2) Contributing to the advancement of the IEC 61850 standard in the domain of condition monitoring with the design and development of a novel logical node for data acquisition and distribution using GOOSE messages. The design and implementation of this proposed research project supplements the knowledge already gained by previous in-depth research studies conducted by universities and other research institutions on applications of the IEC 61850 standard and presents the possibility of new research prospects in the areas of process control and automation.