KCRC West Rail – VL Automation

KCRC West Rail – CMS for UPS of Signals & Communication Systems

Hong Kong

The KCRC West Rail Signals and Communication Systems are vital part of the rail operation and passenger safety. Therefore, it is necessary to install UPS and closely monitored and controlled these UPS remotely from the West Rail Operation Control Centre (WROCC) via a Central Monitoring & Control System. The heart of the CMCS is the Station Monitoring Units (SMU) that is based on Siemens S7-300 PLC located at each of the nine (9) KCRC West Rail Stations and ancillary buildings. Extending from each of the SMU there are more than 70 remote S7-200 for each UPS along the trackside. Local display is by way of Simatic Operator Touch Panel.

VL’s responsibility on the CMS included system design, configuration integration, test and commissioning. VL is a subcontractor to the UPS vendor supply to KCRC.

Project Details

Central Monitoring and Control System (CMCS)

The Station Monitoring Unit (SMU) based on S7-300 series controller is state-of-the-art technology from Siemens. The S7-300 controller is compact, modular, expandable, scalable, and comes with a host of communication options. The S7-300 controller shall interface directly with the UPS for status feedback to the CMCS as well as execute commands received from the CMC. A CP343-1 Ethernet module is included for each S7-300 controller for communication with the CMCS.

To connect the CMCS and SMU it is necessary to form a fiber optic LAN utilizing the dark fibers cables provided by KCRC. The fiber optic LAN shall be based on IEEE802.3, 802.3u, 802.3x, and 802.1D standard technology and be arranged in a ring topology. The proposed Optical Switch Module (OSM) allows each fiber cable segment to extend as far as 15km on single-mode fiber using 1300nm wavelength.

Functions
Control & Monitoring Functions

UPS Status including
Main Input Switch Status
Mains Fail Alarm
Inverter Fault
Charger Fault
Output Overload
Battery Fault
Remote UPS On Off Control

Features

Graphic User Interface
Alarm Processing
Event Log
Historical Log
Reporting
System Management

Challenge + Solution

The FO Ring Topology – Today the MTR West Rail line is 35.4 km track with 12 stations between Hung Hom and Tuen Mun. Ethernet is usually thought of as having a star topology. However, the long distance usually makes it difficult to run fiber in a star formation from a central switch. By connecting the Ethernet switches in a ring topology has the advantage of a redundant pathway where downtime must be minimized. When a link goes down, the message frame can still travel in the opposite direction to maintain data integrity. Note that rather than connecting the last segment of fiber between the first and last station, an interlacing method can be used where the odd and even number stations are connected to reduce the net distance any single segment.