Discussion on the development of communication power supply monitoring system and some issues

The application of centralized monitoring technology for communication power supply in communication power supply marks the transformation of the maintenance and management of communication power supply from the manual guarding maintenance and management mode to the computer centralized monitoring and management mode. Its purpose is: (1) to adapt to the development of communication technology and improve the maintenance and management level of communication power supply equipment; (2) to improve the quality of communication power supply and make the power supply system more reliable and economical; (3) to give full play to the advantages of computer technology and make the power supply equipment management develop in the direction of automation and intelligence; (4) to realize the communication power supply equipment with less people and unmanned operation; (5) to improve maintenance efficiency and reduce maintenance costs.

It has been 10 years since the development experiment of the first communication power supply monitoring system of Fuzhou Telecommunications Bureau in the early 1990s marked the beginning of power supply monitoring. During this period, the power supply monitoring system has made great progress both in technology and in the scale of system implementation. People's understanding of computer centralized monitoring systems has greatly improved. It can be said that the development of communication power supply centralized monitoring technology and the implementation of monitoring systems have entered a new era.

This has created a good environment for the further development of communication power supply monitoring technology and the further implementation of monitoring systems. However, we have also noticed that many new problems have been exposed in its development process, such as fault diagnosis and analysis under the condition that the hardware configuration of the monitoring system is flexible and the software functions are constantly improved. The performance of high-intelligence directions such as data statistics has not been better developed, and the report mode of one-hour meter reading under the manual guard maintenance mode in the past is still reflected in the power supply monitoring system, and the reliability of the monitoring system and other problems still exist. Now let's discuss the development of the monitoring system and the problems exposed in the implementation of the monitoring project.
In terms of function, in order to achieve the requirements of less people and unattended power supply equipment, the power supply monitoring system emphasizes the rapid response to power supply equipment fault events and the accuracy of fault alarms. Now the power supply monitoring system is constantly expanding new intelligent systems on the basis of continuously improving basic functions such as remote control, telemetering, monitoring information query, data storage and recording, real-time historical trends, system configuration, remote operation, password management, and support for networking.

1. Smart device access

Due to the large variety of communication power supply equipment, for intelligent devices, even the same type of equipment has different protocols from different manufacturers. In addition, there are many manufacturers supplying power supply equipment, and there are more types of protocols. In the implementation of the monitoring system, in order to better utilize the resources of intelligent devices, the intelligent devices are directly connected to their monitoring system through the conversion of communication interfaces and communication protocols. The communication interface basically belongs to the hardware conversion between RS232, RS485, and RS422, which is relatively easy to implement. However, the conversion of communication protocols has always been a thorny problem that plagued the implementation of monitoring systems in the past. At present, this problem has been initially solved. On the one hand, most power supply equipment manufacturers can actively provide the communication protocols of their equipment, and on the other hand, the former Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications has provided the agreed protocols for intelligent devices. Provides conditions for protocol conversion. At present, the conversion of communication protocols and communication interfaces mainly adopts the method of protocol converter. The so-called protocol converter method is to connect a device called protocol converter between the intelligent device and the station monitoring host, one end is connected to the serial port of the intelligent device, and the other end is connected to the serial port of the station monitoring host, so as to complete the conversion of communication protocols and communication interfaces. Simply put, a protocol converter is a microcomputer system with CPU, EPROM, RAM, serial communication port, etc. Protocol conversion generally meets two conditions: first, there are at least two serial ports that match the serial ports of the converted intelligent device and the serial ports of the station monitoring host respectively; second, the communication protocol of the intelligent device is converted to the station monitoring host protocol, and the conversion software is solidified in the protocol conversion EPROM. This method is more effective for multiple intelligent devices with different protocols to access a monitoring host at the same time. Another conversion method is to put the protocol conversion function in the station monitoring host, but this conversion method is not common in actual applications, because this method is only applicable to the case of connecting intelligent devices with a single protocol to a monitoring host. If there are too many types of protocols converted in the monitoring host, it will cause the monitoring host to be overloaded, affecting the normal operation of the monitoring host, and also bringing many difficulties and problems to the monitoring host software development. In addition, the introduction of a unified communication protocol provides a better solution for the access of intelligent devices.

2. Reliability issues of monitoring system

As new technologies, new processes and high-quality devices are more widely used in the production and manufacturing of communication power equipment, the reliability and automation of the monitoring system have been greatly improved. For example, intelligent equipment such as switching power supply equipment, UPS, diesel generator sets, and non-intelligent equipment such as valve-controlled battery packs that are currently commonly used all have high reliability, which provides better conditions for centralized monitoring and management of communication power and achieving the goal of less-staffed and unmanned communication power equipment. The reliability of the communication power monitoring system is also crucial, because the reliable establishment and development of the monitoring system affects whether the maintenance and management level of communication power equipment can be improved, the power supply quality of the communication power supply can be improved, and the goal of less-staffed and unmanned can be achieved. Therefore, on the basis of continuously improving the performance of the power monitoring system, it is necessary to focus on improving the reliability of the monitoring system. The communication power monitoring system is a large real-time network system.

3. Improve the self-check function of the monitoring system

In order to make the monitoring system play its role more effectively, in addition to continuously improving the basic functions of the monitoring system, it is also necessary to focus on using the advantages of computer data processing to develop and improve high-intelligence performance. Fundamentally change the traditional maintenance mode and effectively use monitoring technology.
The implementation of the monitoring system is based on a new maintenance model, that is, the region is used as the monitoring management center to monitor and manage the corresponding bureaus and stations. The bureaus and stations are less staffed and unmanned, and the city monitoring management center uniformly manages its regional monitoring management center. In addition to the difference in maintenance management mode, the biggest difference between this computer-based centralized monitoring management and manual guard management is that the monitoring system realizes computer automatic real-time monitoring of communication power supply equipment. For example, when a power supply equipment fails, the monitoring system will respond quickly and report to the corresponding management center in a timely manner. In order to adapt to this computer monitoring and management method, it is required to fundamentally change the traditional maintenance mode. However, we have noticed that although the implementation of the monitoring system is based on the new maintenance mode, the requirements for the monitoring system still retain the traces of the manual guard maintenance management mode. For example, in the past manual guard period, the routine meter reading was done once an hour in order to check the equipment regularly. Now, the computer monitoring system is used, which is characterized by real-time monitoring of power supply equipment, but it requires hourly meter reading, and stores and prints it in the form of daily reports, and these reports must be stored for 2 to 3 years. As a result, printing and storing these data in the monitoring system takes up a large amount of the monitoring system's resources, but these data are rarely used. In the face of these problems, some functions of the monitoring system should be reconsidered:

(1) On the basis of continuously improving the reliability of the controlled equipment (power supply equipment), comprehensively improve the safety and reliability of the monitoring system.

(2) Considering the overall situation of the controlled equipment and the monitoring system, since the safety and reliability of the power supply equipment and the monitoring system can be basically guaranteed (the reliability index requirements of the power supply equipment are: MTBF>50,000h for switch rectifier equipment, MTBF>350,000h for valve-controlled batteries, and higher reliability index requirements for AC and DC distribution equipment, and the reliability index requirement for the monitoring system is MTBF>100,000h), the implementation of the monitoring system should be developed in the direction of simplicity, practicality, and high intelligence, while ensuring the accuracy and speed of the alarm and pre-alarm performance of the monitoring system. In addition, the continuous improvement of the intelligent statistical analysis function makes functions such as meter reading once an hour less meaningful.

(3) Update people’s previous maintenance concept of manual supervision and establish a new maintenance system.

Therefore, another important task in the implementation of the monitoring system in the future is to fundamentally change the traditional maintenance mode, make more effective use of monitoring technology, and enable the power supply monitoring system to play a greater role in the maintenance and management of communication power supply.

4. Network access detection of monitoring system

Testing a monitoring system is difficult and is subject to the following limitations:

(1) To implement testing on the monitoring system, there must first be a standard basis for the test items, indicators, test conditions and test methods. Although there are some technical requirements for monitoring systems at present, they are far from sufficient as a standard basis for monitoring system testing.

(2) Compared with general power supply equipment, the monitoring system adopts more computer technology, and places more emphasis on the network nature of the system, the real-time nature of the system software, and the functionality of the system. This makes it difficult to evaluate the practicality and technical performance of the monitoring system.

(3) The monitoring system is a large-scale real-time network system with certain capacity characteristics (including software capacity characteristics and hardware capacity characteristics). The realization of various performance indicators is meaningful only when it runs at full capacity. As a test of the performance indicators of the monitoring system, it is impossible to establish a full-capacity system.

(4) Subject to other restrictions such as communication methods and conditions.

From the above situation, it can be seen that the implementation of monitoring system testing does face great difficulties. Even so, it is necessary and meaningful to implement testing on the monitoring system through certain methods to achieve the greatest possible approximation and describe and evaluate the performance indicators of the monitoring system.