Abstract
Applications of safety-related control systems demand reliable and credible inputs from physical sensors, therefore there is a need to extend their capabilities to provide a validated input with high availability. Our main idea is to insert virtual sensors between physical sensors and the control system’s logic. The created solution can validate the values of real sensors and with the use of multiple virtual sensors we can achieve high availability in addition, therefore our solution is entitled as a virtual redundant sensor. It works by the digital twin’s concept and uses fusion function to calculate validated results. The fusion function is used to transform the measured values from the physical sensors according to designed numerical models. The selection of a numerical model with assigned fusion functions can be performed via the WEB-based graphical user interface. Proposal of the numerical model is created and validated on the experimental workplace with emulation of physical sensors and MQTT integration (smart IoT sensors). The results of testing have shown that our solution can be applied to validate the values of physical sensors. Proposed fusion functions calculated results according to the selected model in all cases, while non-standard cases were handled according to our definition. In addition, the high availability concept with a group of two virtual sensors has proven fast recovery and availability of results for safety-related applications as well.
Highlights
There are processes that are associated with the occurrence of a dangerous event that can result in damage to human health and the environment, or significant material damage
This article extends our initial work [1], where we developed the original concept for virtual redundant sensor and created its basic numerical model and validated solution based on a dedicated Edge device with an MQTT broker
In order to simplify the design of safety-related applications, we introduced the dedicated Edge device for processing all sensors’ values with the calculation of validated results, based on a selected numerical model, as shown by Figure 1b
Summary
There are processes (e.g., in industry and transport) that are associated with the occurrence of a dangerous (hazardous) event that can result in damage to human health and the environment, or significant material damage Such undesirable events or their consequences may be prevented by the application of technical and organizational security measures. We have been able to validate physical sensor values, the created solution has been vulnerable in case of Edge failure. In such a case, the application would not be able to work with sensors’ values and would be inoperable. Our essential2idea is to extend the original concept of the virtual redundant sensor with flexible calculation models according to the required use cases, without the necessity to create the new soluvalidation sensors’.
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