Comparison With Other Control Systems
RTUs, PLCs and DCS are increasingly beginning to overlap in responsibilities, and many vendors sell RTUs with PLC-like features and vice versa. The industry has standardized on the IEC 61131-3 functional block language for creating programs to run on RTUs and PLCs, although nearly all vendors also offer proprietary alternatives and associated development environments.
In addition, some vendors now supply RTUs with comprehensive functionality pre-defined, sometimes with PLC extensions and/or interfaces for configuration.
Some suppliers of RTUs have created simple graphical user interfaces GUI to enable customers to configure their RTUs easily. In some applications dataloggers are used in similar applications.
A programmable automation controller (PAC) is a compact controller that combines the features and capabilities of a PC-based control system with that of a typical PLC. PACs are deployed in SCADA systems to provide RTU and PLC functions. In many electrical substation SCADA applications, "distributed RTUs" use information processors or station computers to communicate with digital protective relays, PACS, and other devices for I/O, and communicate with the SCADA master in lieu of a traditional RTU.
Read more about this topic: Remote Terminal Unit
Famous quotes containing the words comparison with, comparison, control and/or systems:
“What is man in nature? A nothing in comparison with the infinite, an all in comparison with the nothing—a mean between nothing and everything.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“[Girls] study under the paralyzing idea that their acquirements cannot be brought into practical use. They may subserve the purposes of promoting individual domestic pleasure and social enjoyment in conversation, but what are they in comparison with the grand stimulation of independence and self- reliance, of the capability of contributing to the comfort and happiness of those whom they love as their own souls?”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“America is neither free nor brave, but a land of tight, iron- clanking little wills, everybody trying to put it over everybody else, and a land of men absolutely devoid of the real courage of trust, trust in life’s sacred spontaneity. They can’t trust life until they can control it.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built up on the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think.”
—Anne Sullivan (1866–1936)