“Upstream and midstream oil and gas operations employ many types of equipment that can be rich sources of operational and diagnostic data. This data is necessary so operators can optimize production and so maintenance personnel can evaluate asset performance and identify possible problems. However, the geography and remote locations where these sites are typically situated can make it costly and impractical to tap into that data.” With this statement, Emerson’s Denka Wangdi explains the central role that a new class of industrial edge controllers can play in oil and gas operations, from smaller subsystems with less than 200 I/O points, to larger multi-thousand I/O systems. In an article in Process Instrumentation entitled “Oil and Gas Upstream and Midstream Edge Control Opportunities,” Denka discusses how these controllers can supersede the functionality of traditional platforms while adding advanced processing and communication features, and are a fast and efficient solution for adding or building in remote monitoring and digital transformation capabilities.
Based on modern multicore processors, the most robust edge controllers implement hardware virtualization to deliver two completely independent operating systems (OSs) – each with their own dedicated network and USB ports. The first OS is a real-time operating system (RTOS) to provide reliable deterministic control like a PLC or an RTU. The second OS is a general-purpose OS like Linux, enabling users to execute advanced computing, analytics and data handling. This second OS also features secure and efficient IT-based and firewall-friendly communication options for reliable networking over the types of low-bandwidth connections often found at remote oil and gas sites.
To learn more about edge controllers as an evolutionary automation platform merging the best aspects of OT and IT computing and network communication, check out Denka’s article today.
And, learn more about Emerson’s industrial edge computing and control solutions here.
How are you accomplishing digital transformation in your oil and gas operations?